Austin Cline points out that CBS Outdoor has some strange notions regarding the Imagine No Religion billboards being put up by the Freedom from Religion Foundation: they can’t be placed near schools or churches. The school bit, by the way, basically means that they are equating the promotion of freethinking as tantamount to promoting alcohol.
I’ll just sit here for a moment while y’all get the WTF’s out of your system.
But wait! It gets better! There’s reactions to these billboards, see, and something funny emerges. Cline gives us this bit from the AZ Central article:
Bob Mitchell, senior pastor at Central United Methodist Church, on Central Avenue near McDowell Road, said he’s also noticed an increase in atheist activism. “I don’t have a problem with people expressing their points of view in public,” Mitchell, whose congregation has around 420 members, said.
Mitchell said he hoped there would be no backlash against the billboards but wouldn’t be surprised if there was. “I would prefer that there was serious tolerant dialogue that might emerge from this publicity campaign because it is much needed,” he said.
But state Sen. Linda Gray, who represents the Northwest Valley, was more critical of the organization and its billboard ads.
Gray, a Republican, thinks the signs will be offensive to those who believe in God. “The FFRF fails to acknowledge history which recognized the strong Christian commitment of those who attended the Constitutional Convention,” she wrote in an e-mail.
After that, all I can say is “pretty much what Cline says.” I mean, really. I think I just got another example to add to my Why I Dislike Politicians list. And that Bob Mitchell guy? Class act. A dude who gets free speech and the processes of civil society. Chalk him up as one of the good, decent religious folk.
It’s an amazing social experiment, though, these billboards. Some of you no doubt recall the Philadelphia signs, put up by a coalition of freethinking organizations, that simply noted for people who didn’t believe in God that they weren’t alone. The reaction from some quarters was to equate it with an attack on religion. These Freedom From Religion signs are pretty much of a similar stripe — in this case, they simply pose a possibility. There’s no frothing at the mouth, no angry words, merely a thought. That is enough to spark howls of outrage from some sectors. Especially if said sectors are yokel politicians trying to get themselves on the news.
Funny thing is, here in Tucson I see religious billboards on a regular basis. Heck, there’s one just over on 1st Avenue that I see everytime I go to the Ghetto Fry’s. Want to know how offended and freaked out it makes me? Can you guess?
Yeah. Exactly. Free society, freedom of speech. So it’s actually a beautiful thing to see other opinions being expressed publically. It’s the system at work. It’s nice to see that there’s religious folk who get that atheists have that right, too.
1 Comment
26 December 2008 at 5:44 pm
[...] the insanity surrounding a few measly billboard signsaustin cline points out that cbs outdoor has some strange notions regarding the imagine no religion billboards being put up by the freedom from religion foundation: they can’t be placed near schools or churches. . [...]
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