‘Inclusive’ billboard removed after death threats
A billboard intended to send an “inclusive” message about Armstrong County was removed after the landowner reportedly received death threats, according to the Armstrong County Democratic Committee.
The committee leased a billboard along Route 422 near its intersection with Claypoole Road in Worthington and posted a message over the Feb. 4-5 weekend that was intended to counter the messages on other billboards in Armstrong and Butler counties.
Committee chairman Chuck Pascal said the committee raised money for the billboard and rented for it at least a month, but the company that owns the billboard found the message to be objectionable and took it down the weekend of Feb. 11-12.
In a statement, Pascal said Huntington Billboards of Greenville, Ohio, decided to remove the message, citing a provision in its contract with the committee that allows them to remove billboards which are “objectionable or that attracts negative publicity or controversy from the community.” The billboard was removed within a week after it was placed, he said.
The committee’s static billboard said: “No matter what you look like, who you love, what your religion, where you’re from, you’ve got a friend in Armstrong County.”
“I'm not sure in which universe the message on the billboard is objectionable,” Pascal said in the statement. “This is nothing more than right-wing cancel culture.”
He said a representative of Huntington told Melanie Bowser, who had spearheaded the billboard project and is vice chairwoman of the committee, that the company had been told by the landowner where the billboard is located and that he had received death threats and feared for his life as a result of the billboard's placement.
However, no reports were made to the police about threats made to the landowner or anyone else, he said.
“That was just another red herring and outright lie,” to justify removing the billboard, Pascal said.
“Huntington Billboards is complicit in bigotry and intolerance,” Pascal said. “They have characterized a welcoming and positive message as objectionable and negative and displayed despicable complicity and cowardice in canceling their contract.”
Huntington general manager Gary Riley declined to comment about the billboard, but said, “we reserve the right to reject copy at any time.”
The committee’s billboard was meant to send a message to counter messages on electronic billboards from business owner John Placek.
One of Placek’s billboards, located along Route 422 in Summit Township in Butler County, displays a variety of messages including, “Whites are under attack stop it now!!”; “Stop teaching critical racist theory to our kids”; “God’s law ‘marriage’ one man-one woman”; and “God prohibits same sex marriage.”
Placek told the Eagle on Sunday that anyone, including the Democratic Committee, has the right to put up any message that they want.
“This is America; we have free speech,” he said. “You can do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn’t offend or hurt anybody.
“I applaud the Democratic Committee for what they’re doing. They can even advertise on my billboards for a fee.”
