By OTTAWA CITIZEN
Added: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 UTC

Thanks to PrimeNumbers for the link.

Reposted from:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Officials+reject+campaign+buses/1291671/story.html

Ottawa • The city has rejected a “no god” bus ad campaign, a move that organizers hope will serve as a rallying cry for proponents of free speech across the country.

“We need to get people as offended about censorship as they are by the ad,” said Justin Trottier, president of the Freethought Association of Canada.

“It’s not up to the government to control discussions. Everybody should be offended by that.”

The Freethought Association of Canada, a non-profit group that promotes education on the “principles of various world views,” has been using bus advertisements in several cities across Canada to raise awareness about the presence of non-believers and promote dialogue between religious and secular groups.

The campaign follows similar ones in the U.S. and Europe. The ads, which read, “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” are already on buses in London, Toronto and Calgary.

The Freethought Association had been hoping the posters would soon plaster the sides of OC Transpo buses, but their advertising request was denied last week.

“It’s not the first rejection we had,” Mr. Trottier said.

“We got rejected in Halifax a week or two ago.

“It was not a shock in that it wasn’t the first city, but certainly we didn’t expect that in the national capital the atheist position wasn’t welcome on public transit.”

The decision was made based on a subsection of the transit advertising policy which says that “religious advertising which promotes a specific ideology, ethic, point of view, policy or action, which in the opinion of the City might be deemed prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system is not permitted. Religious advertising will be permitted if the information is designed to promote a specific meeting, gathering or event and the location, date and time of said event.”

No one from OC Transpo was available for comment Saturday.

“We think this is a violation of our free speech rights and a violation of the Charter,” Mr. Trottier said. “It seems like a clear case of discriminating against non-believers.”

Mr. Trottier said his group has not ruled out challenging the decision in the Supreme Court.

“We are willing to take this as far as we have to,” he said.

“We don’t just see that we’re fighting for atheists, but for all those groups that would like to have a discussion and use the public space to get their message out.”

TAGGED: ATHEISM, CAMPAIGNS