It’s never good when you cause your own unintentional billboard controversy…

Alabama-based Life Savers Ministries (LSM) put up the following ad in the city of Auburn. Let’s see if you can figure out why it caused a stir:

He alone, who owns the youth, owns the future. — Adolf Hitler Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. — Proverbs 22:6

There are two possible interpretations here that come to mind…

LSM saw Hitler’s quotation, agreed with it, and didn’t give a second thought to who the hell Hitler was. LSM was suggesting that evil people might get to your children, so Bible-lovin’ Christians need to get to them first!

To my surprise, the correct answer appears to have been Option #1.

Which is why, even though the billboard just went up Friday, it’s coming right back down today:

“We are pulling the billboard and certainly never intended to cause confusion. … Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, ‘Children are our most valuable resource,'” founder James Anderegg told the Ledger-Enquirer. “We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less.”

The man makes sense. Yes, Herbert Hoover would probably have been a better choice than the guy who ordered the mass slaughter of millions of Jews… Honest mistake. Maybe they just forgot to Google “Adolf Hitler” before using his line. Could’ve happened to anyone, I’m sure.

In all seriousness, I’m almost positive this happened because someone approved the billboard design without much input from others. Let that be a lesson: If you’re going to pay for a billboard that makes a statement, make sure you run it by a few people to make sure the intended statement gets through to everyone.

It’s not like atheists haven’t made that mistake before…:

(Thanks to Kathy for the link)



