In 2008, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet filed an action to dismantle the signs and Morris effectively ruled that Hell may be real but so are state regulations: “Our courts will not regulate nor impose their religious beliefs on any party . . . [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.”
The person responsible for the signs, Jimmy Harston, intends to appeal on religious grounds. He insisted that the billboards answer to a higher authority: “The Lord just give this for me to do.” Perhaps, but this is likely to be a case where Harston must “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” One of the things to render unto Caesar is a permit for a billboard,
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