A monument to unbelief erected on public land

After years of fights over religious monuments on public land, a county courthouse in northern Florida will soon be the home of the nation’s first monument to atheism on public property.

The group American Atheists plan to unveil a granite bench engraved with secular-themed quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the organization’s founder, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, among others, in front of the Bradford County Courthouse in Starke, Florida.

The New Jersey–based group—which has a membership of about 4,000 atheists, humanists and other nonbelievers—won the right to erect the monument in a settlement reached in March regarding a granite display of the Ten Commandments on the same property.