In British Columbia, Canada, the cities of Kamloops and Kelowna are getting their first atheist bus ads next week:

They’ll be up on April 11th and stay there for a month.

The ads, which are 2.5 feet high and 11.5 feet wide, cost $514 to run for four weeks and are being paid for by Centre for Inquiry, of which the Kamloops Centre for Rational Thought is an affiliate. Kamloops director Bill Ligertwood hopes the ads will stimulate conversation about what he feels is an important topic. “We are committed to a worldview which values evidence and reason as opposed to superstition and unsubstantiated claims about the supernatural,” he said.

Great! It’s a strong message and a well-designed billboard that we know has received attention in the past. Should go off without a hitch, right?

Unless there’s a problem with the local advertising company… and that’s where I’m confused.

Current policy dictates they can’t reject the ad, but Public Relations manager Joanna Linsangan is giving them an out…

… Linsangan added… the atheism ads will be removed if their arrival coincides with negative behaviour, such as vandalism or harassment of a bus driver.

That seems like an odd thing to say. Presumably, atheists wouldn’t vandalize their own billboards or harass drivers of buses with the ads on them…

So if someone else does these things, why would the ads come down? That’s like punishing atheists for someone else’s crime.

Can someone please explain that to me?

*sigh*

Canada… America’s muffin top.



