Earlier this week, the Butte County Coalition of Reason put up this billboard in twelve different locations around Chico, California:

At the end of the post, I said (only slightly tongue-in-cheek):

… the bigger question now is how the community will respond to the signs: with respect or with vandalism.

My psychic powers must be on full blast, though, since one of the billboards has already been vandalized:

The words “Don’t” and “CoR.org” (Coalition of Reason) are now gone.

To their credit, the billboard vendor Stott Outdoor said they will replace the vandalized billboard at no expense to the atheist group.

So far, there are no leads on the vandals.

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Incidentally, this is the first United Coalition of Reason billboard that has been vandalized since May of 2011 when this happened to a sign in Fresno, California after only three days:

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More recently, a Freedom From Religion Foundation billboard was vandalized a month ago when someone drew horns on an atheist:

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There was also this destruction of a controversial atheist billboard in Pennsylvania earlier this year:

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And this one in North Carolina in 2010:

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Vandalism against atheist signs are nothing new. Neither are vandals getting away with their crimes. Neither are churches remaining in silence afterwards, even to offer an apology on behalf of whoever did it.

I suspect the same this time around. But, damn, it’d be nice to report something different.



