Not The Usual Small Town Holiday Display Story

An atheist group in Connecticut is drawing flak for their "Imagine No Religion" holiday display in front of Rockford's town hall. The three-sided sign uses an image of the World Trade Center to suggest that to world would be a safer place without religion. (Uh, amen to THAT.) According to city officials, the Connecticut Valley Atheists' permit request was for a sign that marks the Winter Solstice only. That message is only on one of the three sides of the sign.

From the CVA website:

Al Qaeda is not an evil organization which happens to be religious (such as the Nazis were), but rather an organization whose evil is directly caused by its religious beliefs. If its members were Atheists instead the WTC would still be intact. There's no reason for people to be offended because a display promoting Atheism touts what would be an advantage of Atheism, just because they would prefer a different way of accomplishing the same end. We would not be offended if a religious group put up a sign showing the intact WTC with the text, "Imagine all religions relying on absolute moral principles and rejecting the idea that morality is derived from the will of God as revealed by holy scripture.", although it would be pretty hard to read that while driving down Route 74.

After the atheists' sign went up, the town's mayor had a Christmas tree erected to block it from view. When he was told that the tree was obscuring the sign, he said, "Oh, really? That's unfortunate."