A conservative religious billboard provocateur is taking his show on the road after years of causing a stir around Armstrong County with signs that have been criticized as being hateful and bigoted.
John Placek has invested $250,000 in a mobile LED billboard truck that will help him share his hardline conservative religious views with people across Western Pennsylvania and beyond.
“I know I’m competing with the opposition,” said the 76-year-old owner of a pool and spa store in Armstrong County. “I don’t need any power from anybody. I can power it up and run it for 12 hours.”
His billboards have divided those who see or hear about them.
There’s one along Route 422 in Butler that cycles between one screen that disparages prosecutors involved in ongoing criminal trials for former President Donald Trump and another in opposition to homosexuality.
NAACP Pittsburgh branch president Daylon Davis said it was “deeply disturbing” seeing the images on Mr. Placek’s billboard and said the sign “evokes profound alarm and discomfort, signaling a distressing resurgence of hateful ideologies.”
Mr. Placek insists his intention is not driven by hate, but instead is a call to arms for Bible-abiding Catholics, a group he believes has been pushed to the fringes. “I want America to be strong, religious, nonviolent, and non-corrupt,” he said. “Ever since we got away from God, our country has been going south.”
Mr. Placek’s decision to take his message on the road this year represents the latest chapter in an ongoing drama in Armstrong County centered around political and religious billboards.
Last year, the Armstrong County Democratic Committee posted its own billboard to counter Mr. Placek’s. It read: “No matter what you look like, who you love, what your religion, where you’re from, you’ve got a friend in Armstrong County.”
That sign was only up for six days before it was removed after the owner of the land that the billboard sat on started receiving death threats, according to the Democratic committee.
Committee members declined comment for this story.
His billboard campaign has made headlines and has negatively impacted his businesses on occasion.
In 2019, Sunoco cut ties with a gas station Mr. Placek owned after he praised the acquittal of a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teen in East Pittsburgh on a billboard that flashed a racial slur.
At the time, Mr. Placek said he knew he had pushed the envelope with the sign but he had been trying to promote a dialogue about race.
“I want to be controversial,” he said. “I want to wake people up. That’s what I want.”
Gearing up for the election
In total, Mr. Placek estimates he has spent more than $500,000 on the billboards, which he said he constructed himself.
Another $250,000 recently went toward the mobile billboard truck, he said.
Mr. Placek said he considers the money well spent and added that many in the community have shown support for his campaign, especially in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election. “They say I always tell the truth on my board, which I tried to,” he said. “So it's absolutely working.”
Voter registration data shows Armstrong County, where more than 75% of voters cast their ballot for Mr. Trump in 2020, has seen a slight uptick in Republican support since the last election. Last year, about 61% of registered voters in the county were registered Republicans, up from 59% in 2021.
In comparison, registered Democrats made up 27% of voters in the county last year, according to Department of State data.
Mr. Placek has also garnered attention and support from a number of religious community leaders in the area.
For the last few months he has been meeting with Pastor John Pistorius from Christ’s Family Church in Chicora, Butler County; pastoral counselor John Neyman of the First Baptist Church in Clarion; and Bill Bittner, a local resident who holds a doctorate in theology, to discuss the direction and state of the Catholic faith in America.
The group of men, all of whom said they are Christians, said they try to avoid talking about politics.
Their discussions have taken place with the backdrop of the Pope Francis’ Synod of Synodality, a three-year process of open meetings with members of the Catholic church to determine its future. According to the Vatican’s announcement, the synod led to calls for the church to take steps to promote women in decision-making roles, for new accountability measures to curb how bishops exercise authority, and for a “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ± community.
The reforms — which come in the wake of a decades-long decline in church attendance — have been met with a spectrum of reactions, with some applauding the Vatican’s step toward increased inclusivity and others criticizing the church, claiming it is bending to progressive societal pressures.
However, Mr. Placek and the group of men who gravitated to him after seeing his billboards said they disagree with the direction the Pope has taken with the Vatican, especially the increased inclusivity for the members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“The church today is more divided than ever,” Mr. Bittner said. “You have all these people falling away and these churches that are following in it.”
According to Mr. Pistorius, a self-professed “Bible-thumper,“ Christians have also become a disenfranchised group in society.
“I think that people of faith have been marginalized, except when those people of faith line up with the bigger agenda of spreading a message that’s contrary to God,” he said.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg, which includes Armstrong County, did not respond to requests for comment regarding the billboards.
First Published: May 4, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: May 4, 2024, 12:03 p.m.