Earlier this month, Ken Ham‘s Answers in Genesis tried drumming up support for their Noah’s Ark Theme Park with a hilarious billboard campaign targeting their “intolerant liberal friends.”

It was funny in large part because they were claiming no one could “sink their ship”… as it sat on land.

Anyway, in a 15-second digital ad that slated to appear in New York City’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve, Ham’s reusing that slogan (“To all of our intolerant liberal friends”) as a prelude to an image of a Christian cross with the message “Thank God for Freedom”:

A couple of things:

1) Ken, we’re still not friends. Friends don’t begin a conversation by insulting one another.

2) Where’s the “intolerance”? No one is stopping you from putting up the ad. I don’t believe we need to thank God for our freedom, but that’s hardly intolerance; it’s just a disagreement.

Ham attempts to explain the message on his site (which I’m providing a link to because, unlike him, I’m not afraid to let you see for yourself what the other side says):

The board’s message is meant to confront and challenge people about threats to America’s freedom of religion and freedom of speech — and publicly and unashamedly stand for the gospel message that the Cross (shown on the board) represents.

But there’s no threat to the freedom of religion or speech that he can point to, certainly none to Christians in the U.S.

Need proof? There’s a goddamn Creationist billboard in Times Square.

Ham tries (and fails) to offer up examples of what he’s talking about:

You see, atheists and other secularists have been working hard to try to remove Christian symbols like the Cross, Nativity scenes, and Ten Commandments displays from the culture — and proclaim their own godless religion. With each attack on religious freedom in America, it’s becoming more clear that these same secularists are some of the most intolerant people around. As I’ve said before, there is no neutral position: You are either for Christ or against Him.

Regarding the first part, every single attempt to remove a Nativity Scene from “the culture” has really been about stopping government endorsement of religion. No one — not a single church/state separation group — has complained about Nativity scenes on church grounds or private property. The same goes for Ten Commandment displays; they’re only problematic when there are monuments proclaiming the Commandments on government property (while all other monuments are rejected). That’s it.

(Ham can’t even find an example of “intolerance” toward Ten Commandments displays, so he links to his own complaints about an unofficial, crowdsourced secular version of the Ten Commandments. Which, for the record, no atheist group wants to see in stone on state capitol grounds or posted in public schools.)

And this idea of being “for Christ or against Him” is just Christian Victimhood speaking. Even Christians can support the idea that government should remain neutral with regard to religion. I’m not “against” Christ; on these matters, Christ is simply irrelevant. So is God. And so are my own beliefs about God.

For a guy whose digital billboard is “brought to you by… the First Amendment,” Ham still hasn’t figured out how the Establishment Clause works. Maybe he should educate himself before he embarrasses himself again in 2015.



