Unholy spat breaks out in Florida over stretch of Highway 98 that was blessed by Christians and then unblessed by atheists

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

An unholy spat has broken out over a nondescript stretch of road in Florida as atheists and Christians stake their claim over the asphalt.

Polk County's Highway 98 was first blessed a year ago by a local church group wanting to prevent sinners and wrongdoers from entering the community.

Annoyed by the appropriation of the public highway by those of a religious bent, humanists took to the street last weekend to symbolically wash away the anointment oil.

Now, not to be outdone, the group behind the initial ceremony have indicated they will re-bless the road – but they are not saying when.

"We will probably do it again at some point," said Cassandra Geringswald, wife of the local pastor and a member of Polk Under Prayer (PUP).

"But we are not going to tell the atheists, because they will be back out there again," she added.

The ploy may work; it took Atheists of Florida the best part of a year to discover that the road leading into Polk County had been blessed, Geringswald said.

The battle over Highway 98 has played out against the backdrop of an argument over the separation of church and state in the county.

Atheists of Florida said their action followed news that the local mayor, sheriff and schools superintendent were at the original ceremony – a claim denied by PUP.

In addition, they point to a blogpost by a local evangelical minister claiming the strip of anointed oil will help "angels inspect every vehicle" and lead to non-believers being "incarcerated or removed from the county".

As a retaliatory measure, a small band of humanists took to Highway 98 armed with brooms and a vat of "unholy water" to clean away any remnants of the oil not removed by a year's worth of rain.

EllenBeth Wachs, acting president of Atheist of Florida, said: "We decided to do this un-anointment service to protest against the mingling of government and religion.

"It was just a last-minute event, put together on the spare of the moment. It was purely symbolic, we don't even know if we picked the right part of the road, we just random choose a part."

Wachs admitted that the ceremony was a publicity stunt, and a successful one at that, given the local and national media coverage it has garnered.

"I'm astounded by the backlash; we are floored by it," Wach said, adding: "This was just a symbolic ritual to welcome people of all faiths and none to this county."

But Geringswald believes the atheists were simply trying to mock the church. In any event, they have got the intention of the anointment ceremony all wrong, she said.

"Anybody is welcome to live here, faith or no faith. The point of the blessing was to ask for protection from those that seek to do harm," the PUP member said.

She noted that crime fell after the road was anointed and arrests went up – "if we got the Lord's favour, we appreciate that," she explained.

And despite the counter-action by humanists, PUP intends to continue with its blessings in a bid to protect Polk County, the churchgoer added.

"We will be doing other things that the atheists won't like, but we don't need to get their permission".

But in an indication that the battle of Highway 89 looks set to continue, Wachs is already planning the next move.

"We've heard that they buried bricks with psalms on them along the road as a more permanent blessing. I guess we are going to have to start unburying them," she joked.