

A Freedom From Religion Foundation banner in a Florida town has been vandalized, and we need your help in restoring it.

Barely a day after it was put up in Boca Raton's Sanborn Square Park to counter a life-sized nativity scene, our Winter Solstice banner was spray-painted and defaced.

The Foundation is offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandal or vandals responsible. It will also restore the banner. Here's where you come in.

Each year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation places Winter Solstice banners and other freethought holiday displays in governmental "public forums" — such as in Boca Raton — where religious groups place devotional exhibits. If religious displays are on government property, then we deserve to be there too!

Unfortunately, the spirit of the season doesn't prevent people from trashing and stealing our displays — as can be seen in Boca Raton. Such vandalism has occurred for years.

Why let criminals censor freethought messages and violate our right to free speech? FFRF is asking you to help protect our freethought displays throughout the country. Make a pledge to FFRF's Resurrection Pledge Drive. You will only be asked to fulfill your pledge each time one of FFRF's December displays are stolen or destroyed.

Your support not only helps us promote nontheism and state/church separation, but helps deter vandalism. Thanks to the Resurrection Pledge Campaign, FFRF was able to counteract vandalism and theft of three of our displays in 2015! If any of our displays are vandalized or stolen this season, each time FFRF will use your donation to ensure that our message gets out to even more people.

FFRF's defaced Boca Raton banner commemorated two important dates that are observed in December. The real reason for the holiday season is a natural event — the Winter Solstice — that falls on Dec. 21 this year. And the Bill of Rights — the document that is the basis of our freedoms — came into being on Dec. 15, 1791. Prior to destruction, the banner proclaimed "Happy Winter Solstice" and read:

At this season of the Winter Solstice, we celebrate the Birth of the Unconquered Sun — the TRUE reason for the season. As Americans, let us also honor the birth of our Bill of Rights, which reminds us there can be no freedom OF religion, without freedom FROM religion in government.

The irreverent graphic depicted the Statue of Liberty and Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington gazing in adoration at a "baby" Bill of Rights.

With Sanborn Square Park zoned as a free speech area, FFRF Lifetime Member Preston Smith worked with the city of Boca Raton for several months to gain approval for "equal time" displays. FFRF contributed the banner to further its mission of the separation of state and church. A local Catholic Church has been placing a nativity display in the park for years without incident.

Alas, the same respect wasn't shown toward our banner. With your support, we can restore it.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national state/church watchdog representing nearly 25,000 atheists and agnostics around the country, including more than 1,200 in Florida and a chapter in the state, the Central Florida Freethought Community.