The University of Idaho Argonaut

Defacing humanist billboard hurts, not helps debate

When entering Moscow on U.S. 95, you might notice a blue and white billboard on the left side of the road that says “Millions are Good Without God.”

The sign — placed by the American Humanist Association — was recently vandalized so that the ‘without’ was blacked out, changing the message to “Millions are Good God.”

This isn’t stupid solely because the vandals forgot to put a comma after the word good. It’s stupid because resorting to petty crimes to make your argument is never a good idea.

Ultimately, it’s these sorts of acts that tend to get people riled up. Faith, or lack thereof, is one of the more divisive issues of our day, and it’s these kinds of acts that continue to fuel the fire.

It’s no different than when a secular person vandalizes a religious building in an attempt to send a message — it comes off as a desperate act until the owners of the vandalized property swing by the store for some cleaning supplies and scrub away the damage. Problem solved.

The American Humanist Association says on their Web site — which features a press release pertaining to this story on their front page — that they will simply repair the billboard. They did, and now everything is as it once was.

When it comes down to it, this act, and vandalism in general, will not prevail. There are far more effective outlets — print, the Internet, discussion, etc. — to express one’s sentiments concerning the message of a billboard, and we would all do good to recognize that.