You may recall Dick and Betty Odgaard, the militantly vomity Christian power couple from Iowa, who recently decided to shut down their wedding chapel after refusing to host a gay wedding, and getting sued in 2013 as a consequence.
Related: Iowa Venue Refuses To Host Same Sex Wedding Due To Religious Beliefs
Well, Gay Star News reports they’re now using their ample downtime to put up 1,000 taunting billboards that oppose gay marriage. The first one, a “14’x48′ lighted beauty,” in their parlance, was just mounted beside a highway five miles south of Durant, Oklahoma on July 24. Betty has previously referred to herself as a “melancholy artist,” and the billboard is evidently the fruit of her creative labor: “Marriage = 1 man and 1 woman,” it reads. “Please… I need your help with this! – God”
“This billboard is funded 100% by your generous donations,” the Odgaards typed into the Facebook page of their new tax-exempt charity, God’s Original Design Ministry. (Mission statement: To “Restore The Biblical definition of marriage in our society.”)
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
“One down and 999 to go for 1,000 points of light. Thank you and god bless!”
As you might imagine, this vanity project of coiled hatred has met with some hostility in the comments:
“Since it costs approximately between 500 and 8,000 to do this, that would help clothe and feed a lot of homeless people (but I’m assuming only if they aren’t gay)?!”
“I love how you forged God’s signature at the bottom!” wrote someone we’d like to marry.
Related: Antigay Business Owners Claim They’re Targets of Intolerance and Hate
Also, the ever-busy Odgaards recently shot a goblinesque cameo in a Ted Cruz campaign video, claiming they were “forced” to close their wedding chapel because they turned away a gay couple due to their staunch religious beliefs:
But this is what is known in academic circles as total horsecrap. The Odgaards were only fined $5,000, but refused to adhere to the state’s anti-discrimination laws and shut down their whole business instead. The converted church will be closing its doors sometime this month.
A post from July 14th reads: “We will continue an open policy on our Facebook page. With that we can expect and welcome civil comments in opposition to our ministry and/or our mission… While we are all sinners, we (his children) are still loved by our Father…even those who hate. Fortunately, by His grace we have all been given the opportunity to repent and be saved!”
We strongly encourage you to stop by their Facebook page, and hope you’ll keep your comments as civil as you do on our own posts.
Julie Bunn
yeah because THAT will stop people from being gay……..
Troy Geary
So silly. Such children.
Richard Hornbostel
Good way to spend their money
AtticusBennett
up next, their billboards stating “Stone Bristol Palin, God says to. Because she has two bastard children”
oh, wait. No. it’s on THE GAYS that these people have a (biblical!) problem. not any of the things “conservatives” do that defies scripture, daily.
Brian JC Kneeland
They are a bit late since marriage was ruled on by the supreme court!
Ladbrook
So I guess she’s cool with all of her husband’s future wives and concubines. As I recall, it’s totally Biblical… and for him, totally bitchin’!
Tyler Budhram
…as well as speaking for God.
James H. Haskins IV
I think these people forgot to read the bible especially the parts where you could marry multiple woman, sister in law, etc
Jim DelRae
Corey Michael DeCola
Religion = Liars + Hypocrites
Shirley White
They have money to WASTE! Because your posters will not stop #GayMarriage!
Glücklich
Talk about a waste of money!
Lvng1Tor
999 upside down is 666..just sayn!
David Gervais
No, no. I’m sure what they mean is that marriage requires 1 men’s room and one womens room. Or perhaps separate clothes closets? According to this, God is some kind of Interior Designer.
Lee Bryan
So one guy needs to wear a kilt to their wedding and all is solved.
David Gervais
Of course they were “forced” to close their business. They kept turning customers away.
Mercurical Memo
Oh Americans… for a country that perpetually bladders on about theocracies in the Middle East, they have a LOT of house cleaning to get to, no? Who needs an Ayatollah when Americans have the well financed Bible Belt? Baptists, Mormons, and that ilk have so much political clout. Seriously, it’s like Americans have their very own weapons of mass destruction and then export them to Africa to spread their Theocracies. Then Americans have the gall to point fingers?
DonW
What a pathetic little God that needs “help” with a minor issue like this. Can’t He just smite the Supreme Court with one of those hurricanes and floods of His? I guess with His lousy aim he’d probably hit the Fox News studios instead.
Mr-DJ
God needs help? Since when? Maybe the “Republican” god does. But if my Omnipotent God had issues with Gays, he would not have created them to begin with.
Paul Tidd
I thought that god was all powerful. Being all powerful means that you don’t need to ask for help.
Jim Guinnessey
More idiots at large. The USA seems to manufacture these morons non-stop.
stephen driscoll
No need to worry. “God” never shows up for anything anywhere anytime. Primitive, punitive mythology dies hard but it IS dying – but there’s still a sucker born-again every minute.
Noah Ayyash
Timothy Grover
That’s not God!
GayEGO
It is unfortunate that some people are brainwashed by their religions such that they do not understand it is they who are hateful and intolerant of us. They are a profit making business that is paid for their services, not by donations, and they need to obey the law as we are a country of laws, not church doctrines.
Michael Gonzales
O
russellhm
Looking at this couple, the epitome of the redneck, ultra radical religious imbeciles, is enough to turn my stomach. People need to read Sinclair Lewis’ classic, “Elmer Gantry.” Yep, Burt Lancaster as a perfect Elmer and Shirley Jones a lovely prostitute but the message is a bit soft. Tent revivals and foot-washings are not that common these days, but during the 20s and 30s, religious icons like Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson were rock stars, raking in money. After WWII, they were replaced by folk like Billy Graham whose son now carries on a blighted tradition without his father’s subtleties. If Nixon prayed with Graham do we need know any more?
Lestar
they’ve been reading that collection of hallucinations known as the Bible.sigh.
lencho
I believe the help the Odgaards really need is resting on her soiled laurels in Alaska. It’s time to call Sarah Palin into the fray…that’ll straighten things out. Then and only then can we all enjoy these folks’ narrow vision of what ‘happiness’ is…or go to hell!
Leonard Woodrow
They would do better to educate themselves into the 21st century, and forget all their stupid, antiquated superstitions.
GG
Sorry, creeps. Neither you nor your religion gets to define civil marriage. Holy matrimony, yes. Civil marriage, no.
The Odgaards began God’s Original Design Ministry (the organization behind the billboards) as a 501(c)3 organization, meaning it’s exempt from taxes. News alert: Part of retaining tax exempt status designation is that the activities of a 501(c)3 must be non-political. I smell another lawsuit in the offing.
Berkleyguy
Did they create a Go Fund Me page? If they did it’s probably that money that is funding these disgusting billboards.
Berkleyguy
@GG: You are absolutely right
Michael Finnegan
Matthew 6:1-34
” Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”ð???ð???
Tim Dowling
hear hear
Bill Mountrey
“Mounting” billboards?? And they call LGBTs sick?? Homophobes are perverts!
John Wadsworth
Whatever.
Ivan Alberto Lugo
I wonder what they will answer to God when he ask them, Why you people didnt used that money spend on billboards to feed hungry children or to help put a roof over a homeless person? Bunch of Bigots
Daniel-Reader
Gross.. a biblical view of marriage?! The people in the bible are polygamists. The Christian deity’s annointed one – King David – had hundreds of wives and concubines, and he was blessed directly from that pervy deity. These people need to condemn the gross polygamists instead of worship them. They have to lie about 1 man/1 woman because that didn’t happen in the world until well after the bible was written. And even then, women were/are still considered property in much of the world. The leading polygamists on the planet are Christians and Muslims. They don’t have any moral high ground to stand upon.
Avery Alvarez
Well, we’ve already won, so go right the fck ahead.
A fool is soon parted with his money, and religious suckers are the biggest fools.
It’s so funny, the buzzwords these creeps come up with to obfuscate and sell their bigotry – “biblical marriage” “natural marriage”, “chicken quesadilla marriage”…
What’s next? Super natural, all organic, much christian, very heterosexual how conservative marriage, now with 50% more delusion!!!
Warning – may lead to painful, expensive divorce, murder-suicide in some rare cases.
Jacob23
DEREK DE KOFF – The Odgaards did not run a wedding chapel. It was a restaurant, a bistro. They would rent out space in the bistro for weddings. It was a for-profit business, not a religious institution, and that’s why it fell under the IA anti-discrimination laws.
Finrod
Pretty sure that that signature line constitutes taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Giancarlo85
Stupid billboards. I still remember the idiotic Harold Camping ones. These are no different.
Will L
Why stop at 1,000? They should spend ALL there money for such a worthy cause.
It doesn’t surprise me that they chose Durant, Oklahoma, for their first one. That was the slice of Oklahoma that greeted the President with Confederate flags.
There is so much redneck hate in that area, it will likely cave in on itself in a fiery glow.
* And I DO hope the IRS is watching to ensure that it is, in fact, a legal non-profit.