The Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., says that The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s newspaper, rejected a full-page ad that said, in big headlines: “Celebrate Our Godless Constitution.”
The ad, to have run July 4, contained quotes from the founding fathers.
It was meant to counter another full-page ad run by Hobby Lobby on July 4 each year in many newspapers that reads, “In God We Trust,” also with quotes from founding fathers. I’m thinking not the same quotes.
“Hobby Lobby’s ads falsely portray the United States as a Christian nation with a government founded on a god, and nothing can be further from the truth,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the organization, in the press release.
I sat down with Gaylor a couple years ago when she was in Tulsa to promote her atheist agenda. We learned that we both attended the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism in Madison, she quite a few years after me, and that we even had some of the same professors.
I think I neglected to tell her that in my 20s I was baptized in Lake Mendota at the student union in the heart of the University of Wisconsin campus.
Gaylor came to Tulsa to speak at the Humanist Association of Tulsa and to attend a winter solstice celebration, an ancient pagan festival she says was usurped by Christmas.
Her organization also sent a letter to the Tulsa City Council asking them to discontinue sectarian prayers, especially prayers in Jesus’ name. And her organization supported billboards in Tulsa that said, “Atheism is OK in Oklahoma.”
Gaylor says she stands for freedom of conscience, but she is in favor of France’s burqa law, which makes it illegal for Muslim women (and others) to wear face covering in public. I guess she’s really in favor of freedom of conscience for only those who agree with her.
Nobody I talked to at the Oklahoman could confirm what Gaylor said about rejecting the ad, but if they did, that was an exercise of freedom of the press than most Oklahomans can support.
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