'Post-Mormon' sign removed

IDAHO FALLS — A billboard in eastern Idaho advertising an organization for people who have left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or who are thinking of doing so has been taken down after the business that owns the land complained.

Barry South, president of Dome Technology Inc. and an active member of the LDS Church, said his sons became concerned about the sign on Dome's property after the Post Register newspaper ran a story two weeks ago.

The billboard along U.S. Highway 20 advertising www.postmormon.org came down more than a week before scheduled.

"It's a form of religious discrimination," Jeff Ricks, the Web site's executive director, told the newspaper. "At the very least, it's religious intolerance."

Lamar Outdoor Advertising, based in Baton Rouge, La., owns the billboard space. Ricks said the agent for Lamar whom he works with told him he had to remove the sign because South's representatives said they didn't like it.

Kent Marboe, the advertising company's representative in eastern Idaho, on Friday told The Associated Press that the sign came down June 14. He declined to talk about why it came down.

Dome Technology makes insulated concrete domes for industrial and commercial use. In a statement to the newspaper, it said it would have the same concerns over any advertisement on its property concerning a religion.

"We believed that the display material on the billboard created an inappropriate association with our company in violation of our position of neutrality," Dome Technology Executive Vice President Gary Peterson said.

Scott Butterfield, manager of Lamar's Northwest region, told the newspaper his company has the right to take down a sign "if it doesn't meet community standards."

Ricks said another company in Utah refused to put up the sign until the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union backed him.