Kentucky Courts Strike Another Blow for Reality

The biggest problem with the freakazoids has always been not their ridiculous belief in an invisible sky god, but their insistence that such belief exempts them from obeying secular laws.

"Religious freedom" means you get to believe whatever idiocy you want to believe, and reveal your idiocy at the top of your lungs if you insist. It does not mean your idiocy entitles you to special privileges or exemption from the laws.

As a Kentucky court tried in vain to explain:

Two billboards proclaiming “hell is real” and other religious messages along Interstate 65 in central Kentucky must be removed after standing for nearly five years without a state permit, a judge has ruled.

Senior Judge Geoffrey P. Morris gave those responsible for the billboards 60 days to remove them in a case filed in 2008 by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

He said the problem is not the religious content of the billboards, but rather the state's right to regulate billboard placement to preserve highway safety and scenic beauty.

“Our courts will not regulate nor impose their religious beliefs on any party,” Morris wrote in an opinion he filed on Friday in LaRue Circuit Court. But “legislative bodies may regulate … the placing of billboards on our highways. … One can well imagine the obvious trashing of our highways if there was no regulation in place and every resident that happened to live beside a highway was free to place whatever size sign that he/she wished to place.”

But Jimmy Harston of Scottsville, Ky., who installed the billboards in Hart and LaRue counties with the landowners' permission, said he hopes to appeal the case after conferring with his attorney.

He contends the state is censoring religious speech.

If only.