Back in December, the Blue Ridge Coalition of Reason (in Virginia) put up four billboards that looked like this:

Last week, I talked about how better graphic design was unnecessary for atheist billboards. In short, I argued, the whole point of the billboards was to gain publicity for the local groups (so they could get on TV or in a newspaper article and talk about what their groups do and what they stand for), and the messages on the billboards were enough to get that publicity. No one ever cares about what the billboards look like… except, it seems, for atheists online, who think a billboard that looks ugly to them means X, Y, or Z.

Judging by the comments on that post, I’m not wrong. Sure, it’d be great to have nicer-looking billboards in some cases, but when it comes to getting the attention of the media, it’s just not needed. Atheist groups have been doing a great job of getting attention on their own.

…

So let’s talk about another aspect of atheist billboards: The fact that they get vandalized pretty damn frequently.

The response I hear so often is that we should pay for hidden camera to catch potential vandals in the act. With all the money we pay for the billboards, why not pay for some security, right?