The Atheist Billboard That Was Banned in Central Arkansas

By HEMANT MEHTA - FRIENDLY ATHEIST
Added: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:55:35 UTC

The is the ad the Central Arkansas Coalition of Reason wanted to put up near Little Rock to launch their group:

The ad would have been placed on 18 buses at a cost of $5,620.

You won’t be seeing them, though, because the Central Arkansas Transit Authority (CATA) and its advertising agent, On the Move Advertising, rejected the ad.

Maybe they reject all religious and non-religious advertising?

Nope. Religious advertising happens all the time. There’s no policy against it. This is, simply put, discrimination at work.

So the United Coalition of Reason is filing a lawsuit, with the help of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association.

In the brief, UnitedCoR alleges that CATA and On the Move violated UnitedCoR’s free speech rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. UnitedCoR asserts that the First Amendment prohibits CATA, as a governmental entity, from using its disfavor of the nontheistic message of UnitedCoR’s ads as a reason for refusing to run them on its buses. UnitedCoR argues that CATA also may not impose burdensome requirements, such as a damage deposit, on speech it labels “controversial.” Such acts, the legal brief states, amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination against UnitedCoR’s speech.

…

“It’s only fair that, when religious groups are allowed to advertise on Little Rock buses, atheist and agnostic groups be allowed to advertise as well,” declared LeeWood Thomas of Central Arkansas CoR. “The world needs to know that people can be decent human beings without believing in a god or gods.”

The press release stops there… but the facts emerging from this case are incredible.