American Atheist billboards with Palin misquote will be fixed

In preparation for their 50th Anniversary, American Atheists is launching a series of billboards in the Austin and Dallas areas with quotes of prominent conservative Christians to advertise their annual convention. Those featured in the billboards are: the now former pope, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, First Baptist Dallas’ Rev. Robert Jeffress, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Many people are criticising American Atheists for their supposed misquoting of the former Alaskan governor. The billboard that AA created can be seen here:

“We should create law based on the God of the Bible.”

Now, it certainly sounds like something that she would say, but did she actually say it?

No.

In a 2010 appearance on Fox News, Palin said, when talking about the controversy surrounding the National Day of Prayer, “I think we should kind of keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant. They’re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments. It’s pretty simple.”

American Atheist Public Relations Director Dave Muscato has announced that the organisation will make corrections to the billboards, and I applaud them for doing so. It is always a good policy to admit your mistakes when they are pointed out.

Then again, it is an even better policy to do your research and remain intellectually honest. Even accidental flubs like these can make us look untrustworthy.

These billboards, nonetheless, are very informative and very entertaining. They are, what American Atheist President Dave Silverman calls, “David Smalley friendly billboards.” If you don’t understand that, it’s alright.

David Smalley, former editor for American Atheist Magazine and now owner and host of Dogma Debate Radio, has a very nice-guy approach when confronting theists, and this caused a bit of a rift between him and Silverman, who has a more in-your-face approach to advertising atheism.

When Silverman was on Dogma Debate recently, Smalley praised him and the billboards, and Silverman joked that they were “David Smalley friendly.”

Rick Santorum likes these billboards too. In an email to CNN, a spokeswoman for Santorum wrote, “At a time when many are trying to remove God from the public square, the senator is appreciative of someone helping him very publicly express his strong belief that we are one nation under God.”

A more comprehensive list of the billboards can be found here:

I very much like that the billboards with Jeffress on them will go up only a few miles from his church in downtown Dallas, and they have a nice little Pride flag under him. The rest of the billboards will go up in Austin, where the American Atheist 50th Convention will be held.

Correction 3/6: Dave Muscato, the Public Relations Director for American Atheists, actually commented on this post with a correction of that last statement about the placement of billboard featuring Rev. Robert Jeffress.

Just a quick correction! The Dallas billboard features a picture of a church with the caption, “Myths begin where knowledge ends.” The one with Jeffress is actually in Austin, where the convention will be on the 29th.

Thank you, Dave.

About these ads