Our Patriot of the Day is Erik Dunk, owner of Iron Block Harley Davidson located in Adams Center, New York, for having had the guts to tell it like it is.
“I’m not going to stop what I believe,” Iron Block Harley Davidson Owner Erik Dunk said.
Wednesday, the electronic sign out in front of the Iron Block Harley Davidson in Adams Center read this: “Obama are you kidding? We’re not Muslim. You are not Christian.”
It was all in reference to comments President Obama made last week.
Obama had said, “If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
Thursday, it simply said the time and listed a couple of upcoming events.
Shop owner Erik Dunk says Harley Davidson got involved after a motorist complaint and told him they wanted him to remove it.
“I have put things that I felt were incorrect that President Bush did with no problem. I’ve had a number of things up I felt President Obama did that were beyond the scope of our constitution that were improper that got no response. As soon as I put the ‘M’ (muslim) word up, that’s when things started to really boil,” Dunk said.
Dunk says reaction he got to News 10 Now’s story Wednesday actually showed him just how much support he has across the nation.
“I’ve gotten calls from California, from Madison, Wisconsin, down in Hamilton and downstate down by Long Island. We’ve been getting calls and each and every one of them are, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing.’ ‘We support you 100 percent.’ ‘What can we do?'” said Dunk.
On Wednesday, Dunk told us he had no intention of removing the message. But a call later in the day from Harley Davidson’s main office about the franchise agreement changed that.
“Let’s say it was just me and Harley Davidson. I’d fight it tooth and nail because I wouldn’t really care what they did to me. The problem is I’ve got 20 to 30 people relying on me for their livelihoods,” said Dunk.
Now while Dunk says his sign on Route 81 will no longer have political messages, he does say he’ll continue the practice at a property he owns nearby on Route 11. Although he does say it’ll lose a lot of its impact due to being out of the way.
A Harley Davidson spokesman says franchise contracts have provisions aimed to prevent dealers from displaying religious or political messages on anything brand associated. He says Harley has a diverse group of customers and takes their values very seriously. He would not say if Harley Davidson threatened to pull Dunk’s franchise agreement.
