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Orange County Atheists' Billboard Crusade
If you're driving down the Costa Mesa Freeway in Santa Ana, you might be able to catch a glimpse of the latest conquest by the Backyard Skeptics, a group of outspoken atheists in Orange Country.
The group is on a crusade, of sorts, to promote their godless beliefs through billboards and bus stop ads, according to the Orange County Register.
"We don't have a voice," said Bruce Gleason, head of the Backyard Skeptics told the paper. "This is our voice."
Their latest billboard just off the 55 quotes "lifelong atheist" Dr. Natalie Khazaal along with her quote: "Atheism is philanthropy without mythology, peace without superstition."
In May, the group unveiled a billboard on Beach Boulevard in Westminster (a city founded as a Presbyterian temperance colony) on Beach Boulevard that said, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." In Mission Viejo, the group has put up bus stop ads, according to the local Patch site. Gleason has plans to put up two more billboards in September.
The group expects controversy (the mayor of Westminster said the city's billboard made her stomach turn), but so far their billboards have outlasted similar billboards in Rancho Cucamonga that only lasted a few days.
Gleason said there might be more Orange County residents accepting of atheist views than you might expect, in a Daily Pilot op-ed:
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There are more atheist groups in conservative Orange County than in Los Angeles. There are more than 15% of Americans who do not believe in a god. That's 54 million people, a larger minority than African Americans, gays and Jews put together.
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