By now everyone’s heard about the atheist busboard campaign that’s been rejected by Ottawa Transit. The rationale for this decision is that “religious” advertising is a no-no — absurd on its face since the meaning of the word “atheist” is “without a god”. One might wonder where Ottawa Transit would get such a screwball idea.
But not me. I’ve been monitoring these religious right crackpots, and I’ve noticed they’ve been pushing this notion for some time now: atheism (also known as “secularism” or “humanism”) as a religion. And not just any innocuous religion, but a fundamentalist religion full of crazed Wild-Eyed Militants (*cough*Mike*cough*) intent on imposing their will on the world, as in this article I spotted last year from our buddies at Christian Government: “Don’t force your religion down our throats!” Um err, yeah, okay.
So it looks like Ottawa Transit may have caved in to a pre-emptive strike by fundies who don’t want atheism “forced down their throats”.
Here’s where CC brings up an intriguing point: if Ottawa Transit’s definition of “religion” is loose enough to include atheists, then it’s likely there are some other OT advertisers who’d fall into the same category. Especially anti-choice groups, who are largely funded by religious organizations… Google! Google! Google! took about 2 seconds to yield a particularly fetid example of anti-choice transit advertising that ran in Ottawa.
Last year, a large multimedia anti-abortion campaign ran in several cities nationwide, including Ottawa, which ran bus shelter ads like this:
The ads were pulled when the Advertising Standards Council deemed them misleading, suggesting as they did that abortion can be had on demand into the 9th month of pregnancy. Get that: it wasn’t pulled because Ottawa Transit recognized that it was offensive, idiotic bullshit, it was pulled because the Advertising Standards Council saw it for what it was, false advertising, and forced the issue.
So if this fraudulent, fundie-driven ad made the cut with Ottawa Transit, then why not the atheist ad?
UPDATE: The Rev. gets the last word.
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/tny_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
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I really doubt that ad would have been denied a mere decade ago. And that really worries me. Some how, social conservatives have made incredible inroads, even here in relatively secular Canada.
And those idiots that brand “secularists” as some kind of religious followers have no idea of what the word means. Secular means public services and spaces are available to all, regardless of belief system. Public transportation is such a service and space and thus the group promoting this ad campaign have every right to buy space. It’s not “false” advertising, nor is it prosthelizing.
If OC Transpo wants to play that game, they should ban all Salvation Army ads before even seeing them.
Question: are the bus shelters property of OC Transpo or are they private property–a situation that happens in other cities.
They’re not run by OC Transpo, but by Clear Channel, a private contractor.
However, OC Transpo does run plenty of ads by Birthright crisis pregnancy centres. Just sayin’
Torontonian – The City of Ottawa owns the bus shelters.
In this article, the city was criticized for rejecting Public Service Union bus shelter ads a couple of years ago.
Miss Vicky – Whoops! My bad. Is that a recent development?
OK, we’re both right. The city owns the shelters, but Clear Channel is contracted to maintain them, sell ad space on them and produce the ads. So the city makes money off them and can influence what is posted in them.
It’s the same with busboard advertising (like on the atheist busboard ad in the pic, which Ottawa Transit rejected) — Pattison is contracted to sell the space and produce the ads, but Ottawa Transit still has a say in what they will carry.
But Ottawa Transport is totally cool with these godful ads. Go figure.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment (ha ha), the TTC does apparently allow ‘religious’ advertising, while OC Transpo (officially) does not. This still leaves the ridiculous issue of defining atheism as a ‘religion’, of course.
Personally, I much prefer the approach of the United Church of Canada which, instead of shrieking and trying to get the ads banned, is simply posting their own counter-ads:
“There’s probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
The reason this is an issue is people have seen Atheism start to get a little voice among all the cacophony and started calling it a religion because they have no other way to relate to it. This is what is we call projection, bringing someone to your level so you can finally argue with them.
Christianity still has a huge stranglehold on our society and even the slightest chance of another opinion is seen as an attack on a system that has attacked and repressed others for millennia. Get off the cross already.
OC Transpo is probably still wishing they were on strike just to avoid this.
fern hill – Ack! I can hardly believe that! Lock up your daughters?? What century is this?
Jennifer – That’s not a bad idea the United Church came up with. Good for them. We need more laid-back Christians with senses of humour to offset all the fundamentalist hairshirt punishment freaks.
Bruce
Do you think this one would make the cut?