FFRF’s Newest Billboard: Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops’ Wrongs June 19, 2012

FFRF’s Newest Billboard: Put Women’s Rights Over Bishops’ Wrongs

By Hemant Mehta
June 19, 2012

This is the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s newest billboard in St. Louis, Missouri. Following their previous full-page newspaper ads, the message encourages people to Quit the Church:

“Most Americans are not Catholic, yet the Catholic Church wants our civil laws to bend to the will of one church,” noted FFRF Co-President Dan Barker.

“The Catholic Church is free to preach its irrational doctrine that contraception is a ‘sin’ to its own membership — the vast majority of whom disregard that teaching and use contraception. But we have separation between religion and government in our secular country. A church has no right to demand that our government enforce its dogma by denying basic health care benefits to women,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The sign will be up for a month and it won’t cause any controversy. None whatsoever. Nope.

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  • AxeGrrl

    Ok, I love this one 🙂  Simple, clear with a little clever word play that makes it easy to remember….kudos.

  • TheAnalogKid

    So, what does 
    Leah Libresco think about it?

  • Gus Snarp

    Cue insane rant from Bill Donahue in 3…2…1….

  • She did indicate that she had a lot of soul searching (my term) to do with respect to her decisions.  This may be a topic of such rumination.  I’d actually like to see what she’d say on the matter.

  • I give it a day before it gets defaced. 

  • Joe Zamecki

    Another awesome billboard! Viva FFRF! 🙂

  • Rodger

    They have put one up in Arlington, TX as well. Hope it lasts the full 30 days.
     

  • Karen

    I’d like to see a “Stop Letting The Catholic Church Mess With Your Head!  I Did!” billboard.
     

  • DG

    Yeah, I hear that the only ones complaining are the bishops.  That’s the way the media portrays it, so it must be true. 

  • Cue screeching about “attacks on the Catholic Church” from Bill Donohue  in 3,2,1…

  • I dunno, Hemant, there were an awful lot of Catholics informing us yesterday that if we think the Church is homophobic, misogynistic, or protective of pedophiles, it’s because we don’t understand their sophisticated theology. So obviously this billboard is totally off base.

  • This is definitely one of FFRF’s best billboards so far. Short and to the point, with a memorable (and quotable!) little barb of a message.

  • Keulan

    Great billboard. I’m sure Bill Donohue’s gonna have a fit when he hears about it.

  • SJH

    This billboard is as misleading as I have ever seen. The bishops are not trying to have the government enforce their dogma. They are not trying to outlaw birth control. They are simply saying that they should not be compelled by the state to provide it.

    We hear so much on this blog about the 1st amendment and freedom of religion but does that only apply to atheists? I’m sure most of you would agree that it does not.

    If this is what the FFRF has to offer, either they are incredibly misinformed or are incredibly disingenuous and people should question supporting such an organization. I assume that they are intelligent people so am I wrong for questioning their agenda? Is their goal precisely what their name states? Are they trying to rid the country of religion at the cost of freedom? Is religion so harmful to our society that we should rid ourselves of it at all costs? Should we falsely make religion look so bad (even though it has been an overall force for charity and knowledge) that we make it irrelevant and attempt to eliminate it culturally since we can’t eliminate it by law? Is the misinformation another form of censorship? Instead of placing a black bar across the image we ridicule it and tell lies about it so people think it is nonsense?

  • Joseph Auclair

    Oddly, conservatives are reacting to these ads as hate propaganda though the message is exactly the same as the one sent to Catholic liberals by Dononhue and the Catholic League a short while ago.

    The Catholic church is not about to change in any relevant respect to satisfy Catholic liberals.

    So, says the League and says FFRF, they might just as well leave the church.

  • If you think for a minute that the bishops wouldn’t outlaw birth control if they could, you are not living in the real world.  Throughout history, whenever the RCC had the power to do so, they used all the force of law and government to impose their doctrines on everyone else.  Relatively recently the church did its best to prevent the legalization of divorce in Ireland, just to name one example.
    In this case, they are trying to impose religious doctrine on employees and others who may or may not be Catholics themselves. When they run a charity, or a university, or other entity that does not require employees, students or those helped to be Catholic, and when they receive public money to do so, they are running a secular institution and should be subject to the same laws other secular institutions are. Strictly religious institutions, such as actual churches, or seminaries, are exempt from these requirements.I am sick of the RCC hierarchy, who have a huge influence in politics, much more than they have any right to, pretending to be oppressed because they are being told to abide by the same rules everyone else does. If they want to quit taking taxpayer dollars, and give up their tax-exempt status, they can discriminate to their heart’s content. Until then, not so much.(And yes, religion is so harmful to our society that we should eliminate it, although I certainly would not say “at all costs.”)

  • Kaydenpat

    Put up that great sign everywhere, not just in St. Louis.

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