United Church Of Bacon

‘We’ll bring creative suggestions to make your wedding even more magical. Or if you already have a plan, we will follow your lead.’ The United Church of Bacon was slammed by religious groups after putting up several billboards around Las Vegas But John said: ‘We enjoy people mocking us. We mock ourselves. This isn’t supposed to offend anyone.’^[2]

Full of grease,

The Lard is with thee.”

So go the opening lines to the United Church of Bacon’s “Hail Piggy: A Prayer for Bacon.”

Despite all the puns (most UCB clergy are “friars”), the secular church has a serious mission: to fight religious discrimination against nonbelievers, to preserve church-state separation in the public sector and to demand equal rights for everyone, regardless of faith.

Prophet John Whiteside talked about why he founded the UCB, why the church’s friars are officiating at weddings and, of course, the obvious: Why bacon? Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What motivated you to start the United Church of Bacon?

A: The church was started at Penn Jillette’s house in 2010 by the 12 apostates, all friends of Penn. The first active membership drive was in 2012 at The Amaz!ng Meeting, a science and skepticism conference. The motivation was to get people to donate to secular charities. We go to conventions and team up with secular charities, giving out free T-shirts to people who donate a minimum of $5. We teamed up with the Secular Coalition for America at the American Atheists National Convention in April and raised over $23,600. At TAM 2014, we raised more than $25,000 for the Secular Student Alliance and the James Randi Educational Foundation.^[3]

Founded in 2010, the United Church of Bacon now claims nearly 10,000 members worldwide and is based on beliefs that include its followers must love the smell of bacon.

“Bacon is a way to bring people together, even if you are religious, there’s no discrimination. You can have a god before bacon,” said church founder and ex-Marine John Whiteside. “I like pigs in a blanket, that’s great, I like donuts and bacon, any type of bacon is great.”

The organization uses bacon's popularity to bring together a “church” of non-believers. But, it was really formed to promote the rights of atheists and religious skeptics. One of its founding members is Whiteside’s longtime friend, Penn Jillette --from the illusionist team Penn and Teller.^[4]

• We oppose supernatural claims. We are skeptics and atheists. In our religion, we doubt religion.
• We fight discrimination. Atheists and non-believers are not inferior and should not be hated and marginalized.
• We raise money for charity
• We perform legal weddings, for member’s friends and family and always for free. How joyful!
• We expose religious privileges as silly by claiming the same rights for Bacon.
• We praise Bacon! If you don’t like pigs, praise Vegetarian Bacon or Turkey Bacon.^[5]

The church praises bacon in particular not only because it's silly, but also because "bacon is real." However, they also support both vegetarian and turkey bacon-loving worshippers.

In addition to performing free wedding ceremonies, the church also raises money for charity, "striving to be the most generous church in the world."

Couples in Las Vegas are taking up the church on its offer as an option for their nuptials. Some newly found bacon worshippers have been sharing pictures of the church's billboards and pictures from their wedding ceremonies on social media.^[6]

“The Slammer was designed for an entertainer to hide,” Jillette told HuffPost. “As children age, they want to be closer to their friends and their school.”

The 10 acres where the house sits has become more valuable than the actual house, and Jillette believes developers would love to build cookie cutter homes on the site.

Jillette realizes he will one day have to sell the property, but, ideally, he’d like to preserve the 7,500-square-foot estate as is, including its seven bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, movie theatre, steam room, hot tub, 25-yard lap pool, two kitchens, and fully operational recording studio.

However, in order to afford his new home, he has to sell the Slammer — or at least get money to pay for its upkeep. To do that, the United Church of Bacon needs to pony up enough dough.

The Bacon Church is a legally registered church created by atheists, but head fryer John Whiteside said the bacon element helps makes the group’s point.

“Yes, worshipping bacon is ridiculous, but at least bacon is real,” he said, adding that the group likes to sprinkle other punny phrases like “Praise the lard” into conversations.

Whiteside said the church has 12,000 members worldwide and hopes to tap that support to crowd fund $500,000 via IndieGogo in the next two months. The goal is to turn the Slammer into the Nevatican, the world’s largest atheist community center.

“We’d like the place to host noted speakers, weddings, parties, or whatever the church members would like,” Whiteside told HuffPost. “We’d like to make it available to various reason or free thought organizations.”^[7]

One of its latest billboards is geared toward the LGBT community.

"To our LGBT family and friends supporting freedom of expression since inception," read the billboard.

Other artwork released by the United Church of Bacon takes aim at religion, with one more specifically addressing Christianity and Holy Communion. It reads "Saving kids from stale crackers & communion wine since 2010."

The group even issues titles to members including "bacon prophet" and "funkmaster general" and boasts that it "worships bacon because bacon is real."

Members are also adamant about maintaining the separation of church and state in the U.S.

"The skeptics' church has a serious intent, to fight religious discrimination against non-believers, to promote church-state separation, and to demand equal rights for everyone, regardless of faith," read a statement from the United Church of Bacon.^[8]