The response to an atheist billboard put up by the Center for Inquiry in Grand Rapids has been quite predictable. While I’m sure most Grand Rapids residents, including those who are Christian, don’t much care about the billboard at all and are perfectly happy to let others have their say even when they disagree, the zealots are climbing up on the cross to crucify themselves and spouting their anger.

WOOD-TV 8, the local NBC affiliate, did a story on the billboard and the comments are coming fast, furious and full of ignorant attempts to claim persecution. A lot of is coming from one Rich Valk:

If we said that we were offended, would they have to take it down, no. They have their freedom of expression and yet when we use the name of GOD in public, we are ordered by the court to take signs like this down. Ten Commandments in court rooms and even prayers in school.

Does he really not recognize the difference between a private organization taking out a billboard and government-run schools requiring students to recite government-written prayers? Is he really that clueless? Apparently so. He’s also flat wrong about such signs being taken down. There are, in fact, thousands of billboards around the country with religious statements on them and no one has ever been ordered to take one down, nor does anyone even attempt to have them taken down.

In another comment he says:

This country was founded on Christian values, to all those who think we have to bow to you, your wrong. In God We Trust. Thank you Barb Gallert, I stand behind you all the way. My constitution says that I also have the freedom of speech and yet if I offend someone, I have to shut my mouth. NOT IN MY LIFETIME.

Yes, you’re such a martyr. And yet here you are declaring your beliefs in public and no one is trying to stop you. I doubt the government has ever prevented you from expressing your religious beliefs.

Speaking of Barb Gallert, her comment was just as bad:

@ James Gleason…..Thank you for your post…….there are too many things in society today where the non-christians get heard and there way. Some non-christian didn’t want prayer in school…..they complained….no prayer. Another non-christian didn’t want a picture of Jesus hung up in school….if was offending….theyhad to take it down. The Ten Commandments can not be posted on State land or in State Court because some non-christian didn’t like it. Non-christians have been whining for way to long and getting there way. I say to all Christians…..don’t stop fighting….keep posting….stand up for what you believe in….don’t let non-christians push us around and keep taking away our rights as a Christian because that is what they have done so far….it is time for us to win back to being a Christian Nation….the way God intended it to be….the reason Jesus died on the cross.

Another one who can’t distinguish between private speech and government endorsement. They simply are not the same thing. She actually thinks that it’s a violation of liberty not to force students to pray in school. That’s positively Orwellian in its perversity.

And speaking of James Gleason, here’s his disgusting comment:

Please God!!! One bolt of lightning please!!! Help me burn the billboard down with one strike!!!! What a joke!!! Our society is a joke!!! Burn the sign down!!!!!!

Perhaps he needs to be reminded of the bolt of lightning that burned down Touchdown Jesus in Cincinnati last year — while leaving a porno store across the street totally untouched. Apparently God has very bad aim.