Is Rick Perry a Secret Atheist? September 21, 2011

Is Rick Perry a Secret Atheist?

By Hemant Mehta
September 21, 2011

No, of course he’s not. But if you look in his latest campaign video, you might catch a familiar symbol and wonder if he’s sending atheists a secret message.

Do you see it?

The Zapfino A. The iconic symbol of Richard Dawkins‘ OUT Campaign.

It’s all over the place.

Clearly, this is no coincidence. What do you think his message to us is…? 🙂

(Thanks to Decio for the link!)

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  • Stefab

    Nice catch 🙂 Man – what a slick video.  Is Rick a magician, because I saw a lot of sleight-of-hand and misdirection in there…

  • Well, I’d say he’s doing and saying whatever he can to get elected and then he’ll remove his mask, so to speak, after the election. But then, if he lied like that he’d lose his atheist street cred. Atheists are terrible liars.

  • It’s nice that he think’s he’s America’s next action movie.

  • UnholyHolly

    I would guess the person who created the video is pulling a fast one on Perry.

  • swamama

    Thanks for posting this. Yeah,  he “believe[s] in America” so much that he wanted Texas to secede from it!

  • Anonymous

    I doubt he even realizes that is an Atheist symbol.

  • Epiphanott

    Why is this even happening’?

  • Hm. If it’s just co-incidence, gotta wonder why the A is always a capital letter. eg: “Who will lead A nation”. There were lower case letters in the same font in there (‘for’, etc), but not one lower case A.

  • Colin Mackay

    I think that Perry is an atheist, unfortunately. As an authoritarian, type 1 (or 2 I can never remember), I think he sees social control as necessary, that he should be the one to control and religion as a suitable vehicle for that control. Atheists should be reminded that our commonality exists only to the extent that we share a common position on theism. Rand, for example, was an atheist but still a dangerous personality.

  • Rich Wilson

    Notice that the Obama half is full of rain, but the Perry half, not so much?

  • Shanti

    Rick Perry, “A-MAN”…uh NOT!!

  • Michael S

    That is an important point. When someone asks about amoral acts committed by atheists, we need only point to the most powerful religious leaders for example.

  • His is A gold, ours is red.  Nothing to see here, move along.

  • Anonymous

    If it’s a message coming from Perry it would have to be “I’m coming for YOU, heathen!”. I think Rick Perry is a sincere fundamentalist Christian of the sort who can simultaneously hold in his head the notion that life is sacred and Christianity=morality and also be proud of the fact that he has ensured the execution of even innocent people and that it’s perfectly ok for people to die if they’re too poor to pay for care.

    That video is frightening. It’s terrifically well made. Over the top? Hell yeah, but considering the general level of education and awareness the average voter shows, it could work like a charm. He’s like the more handsome, more masculine, more polished actor that would play Bush in a movie. In a bad economy with an ill-informed populace, a half-hearted Democratic base and a half-crazy Republican one? He could win, and that thought is very scary.

  • Sandra Stott

    Well it works for us, but I would suspect that what it really is, all he sees is a stylized letter “A” without having any clue what it stands for. 

  • My atheist A gets mistaken for other things so often I’ve stopped wearing it. 

  • Bob Daniel

    yup, I think you nailed it!

  • I think atheists should make a big deal about how Rick Perry is obviously sending a message to us with that A, and that atheists support Rick Perry!! It would really confuse the people who support him because he’s a strong  Christian candidate, and might freak them out enough to throw a spanner into his campaign. If nothing else, it’d be funny.

    I mean, of course he didn’t do it on purpose, but that’s hardly the point, is it? 😀

  • Michael S

    Yeah, I don’t think we can claim entire use of a letter in a font. It isn’t like the font name is “AtheistFont” or something.

  • Way to ruin a good joke, guys. 😛

  • J B Tait

    I suspect he is intentionally trying to look like Ronald Reagan.

  • Davidp

    When is this film out? It looks awesome!

  • Annie

    Yeah.  If this was a trailer, I’d go see the movie.  Though I’d be disappointed if the “new guy” won and turned out NOT to be an atheist, as promised in his ad.

  • Annie

    Maybe Obama’s prayers are more powerful than Perry’s?

  • Sulris Campbell

    while i dont like perry as a candidate your statement is false.  he stated that texas was unique in that it reserved the right to secede when it entered the union, something the other state dont have.    this is a bit of a texan ubran legend and is also false. there is no explicit area in the texas constition or law that regards its secession, which is the same for the other 50 states.

  • Anonymous

    Good point.  I wondered more about why it’s a different font than the rest of the phrase, it doesn’t seem to fit very well.

  • Anonymous

    Good point.  I wondered more about why it’s a different font than the rest of the phrase, it doesn’t seem to fit very well.

  • I wasn’t the only one who saw that…I’m relieved

  • Anonymous

    But why would God let him do that?

  • Hemant, you should write something about Troy Davis! Don’t know what though hehe.

    It was really awkward when one guy started yelling “Allah Akhbar” when the rumors were he was free, standing next to the sooo christian people who knew Troy Davis.

    Also, have you seen Ann Coulters statement on this?

    “Bob Barr defends GA cop-killer on Hardball. Now I’m going to have to reconsider Clinton’s impeachment.”

    “ONE TROY DAVIS FLAME-BROILED, PLEASE”

    “NEW COLUMN POSTED! – COP-KILLER IS MEDIA’S LATEST BABY SEAL — http://WWW.ANNCOULTER.COM”

  • I’m genuinely worried that Rick Perry is Nehemiah Scudder, a character in Robert Heinlein’s science fiction classic,  If This Goes On, written in the 1950’s.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Goes_On%E2%80%94
    In the story, Scudder, a backwoods preacher armed with millions of dollars, charisma, and ruthless brutality takes advantage of a divided and beleaguered America to win the Presidential election in 2012! There are no more elections until after the armed rebellion against his despotic theocracy a century later.

    Sometimes science fiction can be very prophetic, as in Jules Verne’s and H.G. Wells’ prescient visions of many technological advances and social upheavals. Let’s hope that Heinlein was not as Delphian as Verne and Wells.

    Better than just hoping, let’s work to prevent this nightmare as if our lives are at stake.

  • Ed Zwart

    USA!

    USA!USA!

  • The OUT Campaign should sue for copyright infringment, or a trademark violation. Even if it goes nowhere it would probably undermine Rick Perry a little bit.

  • Gabrielbrawley

    Beyond the fact that it is a lie that Texas ever had the right to secede from the Union there was a civil war from 1861 to 1865. This rather descively decided the question of secession.

  • Gabrielbrawley

    If their is any kind of message it is a threat. He has always been about threats and illegal activity. A threat that if he wins he will start with making us all wear an A and then he will round us up and send us to camps until he can get around to implementing his final solution.

  • Anonymous

    Excellent observation, Richard. Very much what I was thinking. 

  • Anonymous

    Excellent observation, Richard. Very much what I was thinking. 

  • Rich Wilson

    (another vanished post)

    luckily it was short

    Have you seen the Glenn Beck biopic “A Face in the Crowd”?  (and I’ll keep the link separate this time http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/)

  • Rich Wilson

    (another vanished post)

    luckily it was short

    Have you seen the Glenn Beck biopic “A Face in the Crowd”?  (and I’ll keep the link separate this time http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050371/)

  • Anonymous

    I agree, the trailer i mean ad campaign is awesome… he just needs that narrator dude 

  • Yea, there will be a full scale witch hunt for the person who chose that A for the ad.

  • Colin Mackay

    “…many wealthy individuals, rather than simply allowing redistribution to
    be decided through the democratic process as such median-voter models
    assume, respond to higher levels of inequality by adopting religious
    beliefs and spreading them among their poorer fellow citizens. Religion
    then works to discourage interest in mere material well-being in favor
    of eternal spiritual rewards, preserving the privileges of the rich and
    allowing unequal conditions to continue.”
    http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/08/08/do-the-rich-use-religion-to-keep-the-poor-in-their-place/

  • Ally P

    He is the most hidden-atheist ever then!

  • Daniel Brown

    Is it the same people who did Pawlenty’s ‘Courage To Stand’ add? Both are very “Summer blockbuster” style. See that one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfkNEq1XioE

  • That is a great looking movie trailer but I really don’t want to see that movie.

    I must say, not being an American I don’t keep up to date on US politics.  That being said, everything I’ve heard about Rick Perry suggests that he is a *very* scary man who would have no qualms about imposing his fanciful beliefs on everyone.  So even though Obama the sequel will probably be ho-hum, though he might surprise you since he wouldn’t have to worry about re-election in the second term, I’d rather have a boring sequel than watch a dramatic dystopian nightmare directed by Michael Bay.

    Though I’m not much impressed with recent round of hopefuls for the next American election, way too many crazy fundies on board.  I don’t know if I much like the idea of giving over control of the worlds most powerful armed services to someone who has a vested interest in fucking things up so they can meet their imaginary friend before they die.

  • Andrew Paul Whyte

    Maybe look to the film maker Lucas Baiano, who coincidentally was born in Canada not far from where I grew up. 

  • Anonymous

    Remember to vote Rick Parry for President.
    That’s Rick Parry with a Zapfino “A”.

  • I’m sorry, but in exactly what way is ‘America the last great hope for mankind’? If the US disappeared tomorrow, the rest of mankind would carry on just fine thankyouverymuch. I know it’s a political campaign and thus the BS level is set at 11, but it’s exactly that sort of jingoistic crap that is the reason that so many people from other nations hold America in such low regard.

  • Rob

    Most of the “Who will lead A nation” is of the same font and is centered (horizontally and vertically), but it looks like the “A” was an ad-hoc addition.  I’m betting it used to say “Who will lead nation” until a last-minute catch by a sneaky atheist typographer.

  • Anonymous

    Oh dear.  I don’t really want to be associated with Perry like this.

    Also don’t any of these ads feature any kind of ….what do you call them….policies?  You know stuff the candidate stands for and says that they will do.  It’s kind of flight on substance.

  • This is a campaign ad? Huh. I don’t think I got anything at all out of this other than “Rick Perry is a fan of flashy graphics and epic music.”

  • Anonymous

    If it’s there intentionally, then Perry is way schmoozier than I originally thought.  But if he thinks that atheists seeing their ‘A’ in his ad will subliminally make us vote for him, like his stupid knee-jerk reactionist xtians will, he needs to develop some critical thinking skills.
    I would really like the read the dystopian novel/see the dystopian movie but the thought of living through a Perry presidency terrifies me.

  • cbc

    He’s not doing a very good job of presenting the illusion that he’s right in the head…

  • Ha! As soon as I finished the article I couldn’t help but think, “perhaps Rick Perry is just playing the Alan Sokal of politics.”

  • Rich Wilson

    Of course not.  That might give someone a reason to not vote for them.

  • Zapfino, much like Papyrus, Apple Chancery, Hobo and yes, even Comic Sans (shudder) are on the short list of Tasteless Fonts for Tasteless People. 

    I think it’s less likely Perry is an atheist, and more likely that he, as is common with politicians, don’t consider knowledgable graphic design a priority. (The Obama 2008 campaign, not surprisingly, did take graphic design and typography seriously.) 

    However, I would also wave a scolding finger at Richard Dawkins for dredging up that garish “A” and branding the movement with it. 

    – Finicky Designer

  • Anonymous

    Did anyone one else take notice of the “An American”. If you are running for president, of course you’re an American.  Maybe I’m too cynical for my own good, but it seems to me that this is a subtle way of appealing to the moronic birthers who think Obama isn’t a citizen.

  • kaileyverse

    Michael Bay was exactly who I thought of as a “director” for this hot mess.

  • Anonymous

    So true!!  America is a great country, but certainly not the best.  Too many uninsured and poor people for such a rich, first-world nation.

  • Anonymous

    Deep!