A couple of months ago we told you about the upcoming atheistic bus ad campaign set to start in the UK in January. Well, it’s here!
The campaign’s organizers have raised much more money than they had originally hoped (£140,000 when their goal was £5,500), and they have expanded it to more locations in more cities across the UK. It’s time for those who fear God’s coming wrath against the atheist advertising venues to seek alternate transportation. Maybe for the next couple of months they can follow Jesus and walk or ride donkeys to work.
Even the United States is not immune to this problem though. Despite having a signed contract for a billboard deal already worked out by a professional in the business, the Freedom From Religion Foundation(FFRF)’s billboard campaign in Phoenix ran into trouble at the last minute and had to be moved so that none of the billboards were near a church or school, as if the suggestion to “Imagine No Religion” were a dangerous and offensive message.
If they didn’t have pressure to run the ads from a valued client, the Phoenix atheists could have been in the same boat as the Australian atheists.
If you still have freedom of expression wherever you live, use it.
Australia is absurdly well known for censorship. Of course, the difference is that it tends to be the Australian government and not the advertising companies that tend to do the decision making when denying certain messages.
Although, I find that certain marketing companies (like billboards) happen to gain way too much of their benefit from public sanction–like the fact that they are being displayed over publicly funded roads, freeways–which I think should be taken into account when examining their own “right to refuse any business.”
If a particular interest receives a great deal of their business from the presence of a publicly funded and operated project it changes the playing field considerably.