Comments on: Atheist Bus Ad Prompts New Policy in Indiana

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:12:34 +0000

Hi. This might be bit off topic, but in the sadly christian Finland an atheist bus ad campaign has started as well. The ad states that “There’s probably no God. So, stop worrying and enjoy your life”. That’s fine. There was a buzz about islamic bus drivers not accepting it, but after all they found no problem with it. This would have been troublesome, as a very big part of bus drivers in the biggest finnish cities come from Northern and Eastern Africa and Middle East and many of them are islamic by religion. It was also proposed to make the ad say, in biggest cities, “There’s probably no Allah. So, stop worrying and enjoy your life”, because of the growing islamic minority of these cities. However, islam still is very small minority religion in Finland and in every Finnish city as well, so the proposed campaign would have targeted very few people.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:07:35 +0000

Censorship is wrong and unconstitutional. The company that runs this advertising agency should not have the right to censor publicly viewed space.

Here’s what is going to happen as a result: They will continue to advertise whatever they feel like and anyone that tries to advertise something they don’t like, they can lean on their self-enforced rules as guidance. What happens when they don’t follow their own rules? What are the consequences they face for not following their own rules that they invented????

Nothing.

By: Florian

Florian — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:18:16 +0000

How much you want to bet they’ll still accept ads for churches?

By: llewelly

llewelly — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:54:03 +0000

If you know anyone who lives where Transpo operates, ask them to keep their eyes peeled for religious ads run by Transpo. I suspect some may pop up despite the rules change.

By: llewelly

llewelly — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:52:17 +0000

So, on the upside, at least this ad will also be banned.

Is Transpo running that ad? Or any ads like that?

By: GDad

GDad — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:14:55 +0000

Like medussa, I’d wait to see if the policy is enforced before declaring victory. Several years ago, there was a big dustup in my own Midwest State where a protestor tore down and set fire to a rainbow flag that was flying at the State House to honor the Capital City Pride March. Rather than deal with the controversy, the state government declared that only the US flag, the state flag, and flags of dignitaries from other states and countries would be allowed to fly from the flagpoles on the grounds.

Yes, you guessed it. Six months later, as I was driving by, I noticed several flags flying that were not in the above approved list. I didn’t have means at the time to take a photo and raise a fuss.

Let’s not let them off the hook just yet.

By: Greta Christina

Greta Christina — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:15:55 +0000

So in other words, rather than accept atheist ads, they radically changed their advertising rules?

Just so they didn’t have to put our filthy ads on their nice buses?

This is like Liberty University deciding not to let Republicans have a club, just they can keep Democrats from having one. I’m not sure I’d call that a victory.

By: miohippus

miohippus — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:29:56 +0000

This is good news. Being that there won’t be any more religious ads, we can monopolize the space!

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:06:17 +0000

Since most cities have publicly run buses only, and no competing transport, I’d prefer a more free (ie. fair) speech approach rather than banning everything that anyone could be offended by.

By: Bo

Bo — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:29:32 +0000

Seriously? No social issues? Basically, only currently-legal product advertisements then?