Freeway Cleanliness Is Next to Godlessness

I didn’t plan it this way, I swear. But moments after the white smoke emerged from the Vatican chimney and a new pope was introduced to the world, I was pulling up to the Echo Park home of an atheist.

And not just any atheist. Bobbie Kirkhart, a retired adult ed teacher, is president of Atheist Alliance International and travels the world preaching the joys of godlessness.

“Did they already pick a pope?” Kirkhart asked.

Yes, I said. I had officially nominated Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who earned the job with his valiant efforts to keep sexual molestation investigators at bay. But they went with German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, I told her, a former Hitler Youth.

Great, said Kirkhart. Could they have found a more conservative successor to lead a church that’s already out of step with millions of its followers?

It’s an alarming time to be an atheist, said Kirkhart, particularly if you happen to live in the United States.

We’ve got nonstop reverential coverage of the passing of the baton in the Vatican; Congress and the White House have just attempted to trample court rulings and the wishes of a husband who wanted to let his vegetative wife die with dignity; and then there’s the war, which was called a crusade by our born-again president.

No wonder I was flabbergasted last week when I saw one of those Adopt-a-Highway signs while headed south on the Glendale Freeway.

“Atheists United,” said the sign.

It turns out that for four years, in both directions between the 134 and 210 in Glendale, “Atheists United” signs have been planted on the shoulder of the Glendale Freeway. I don’t know how I missed them, but when I finally noticed, all sorts of questions popped into my head.

Why would atheists choose to adopt a highway?

Why Glendale, former home of John Wayne and the American Nazi Party?

If I die on atheist asphalt, can I still go to heaven?

A little bit of research revealed that the local headquarters of Atheists United is in Hollywood, which is probably where it should be. Soon, I was in touch with Kirkhart and Steve Gage, another local atheist who rounds up recruits to pick up litter on the Glendale Freeway the second and fourth Saturdays of every month.

So was this heavenly stretch of roadway chosen to startle church-goers from Glendale and La Canada Flintridge as they made their way to Sunday services?

Not at all, said Gage, a mechanical engineer who lives in Mar Vista. The atheists wanted to perform a public service and also get their name out there, somewhere, and the only other Los Angeles County highway available for adoption at the time was in Malibu.

The Caltrans people in Los Angeles told me there’s a long waiting list for prime locations along the 101, the 405 and the 10. It’s not that people are dying to pick up trash, but they like the idea of having their name on an Adopt-a-Highway sign that’s seen by millions of motorists.

A Caltrans employee named Patrick, who didn’t want to surrender his last name because only public affairs officials are allowed to speak to the press, said he didn’t know of any groups being turned down because of sensitivity issues.

“So these people are atheists,” Patrick said. “Let’s say they called themselves devil worshipers. I’m not sure we could put that up on a sign.”

Maybe, maybe not. But I don’t think they believe in the devil, either, I said.

“That’s a good point,” Patrick said.

Gage said the signs have been good advertising. Atheists United is growing slowly but steadily, with about 430 members, most of whom live in Southern California.

But not everyone has been eager to join the ranks of nonbelievers, who worship the work of evolutionist Richard Dawkins, an Oxford atheist who was featured last month in Los Angeles at an international conference of atheists.

“He’s our patron ain’t,” Kirkhart said as she gave me a guided tour of the atheists’ own highway.

The “Atheists United” signs have been spray-painted, duct-taped and knocked over. Some folks have sent nasty e-mails or left blunt phone messages.

“The typical caller says, ‘I can’t believe you’re proud enough to admit you’re atheist,’ ” said Atheists United President Stuart Bechman, a business analyst from Simi Valley. “They say, ‘Groups like you should be banished from the U.S. This is a Christian nation.’ ”

That’s bush league compared to what Kirkhart gets in her international role.

“There’s a sliding scale of ‘repent before you die and go to hell forever,’ ” she said. “Many of them are no doubt sincere, and many are obviously gleeful at the thought of my burning in hell ... I also get a few direct death threats and keep a catalog of those in case somebody decides to act on their convictions.”

Kirkhart was once a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher who, after a divorce and a job as a social worker in South Central Los Angeles, did some soul searching and gave up on the idea of a “benevolent, omnipotent God.”

We exist in the here and now, she believes. We alone are responsible for making the most of our short lease, and the Glendale Freeway is no highway to heaven or hell.

I don’t know, but the true believer who blasted the southbound “Atheists United” sign with a farm fresh egg ain’t headed the way of the former.

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Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.