Despite successfully running in several cities in Canada, including London, Calgary, and Toronto, the Atheist Bus Campaign was blocked from running in Ottawa (Link). Despite the city staff’s approval of similar Christian bible study advertisements, the ads were disallowed from being placed on Ottawa buses with no obvious explanation.
Despite this seeming like a gross violation of the Freethought Association of Canada’s freedom of speech, it’s troubling that the city government in our Nation’s capital would so blatantly apply a double standard to religious and non-religious messages. This would be less troubling if the city had a policy against religious messages of any sort, but this is simply not the case.
“I don’t follow the logic,” said Bus Stop Bible Studies founder David Harrison. “Why would they approve ours and not theirs? If we don’t stand up for (the atheists’) rights, ours will be trampled too.”
Hell, even the other side is sticking up for the rights of the non-believers. To say that I am ashamed in the City of Ottawa would be a gross understatement.
Now, if somebody really wanted to spice this debate up, they would try to get Qur’an verses displayed on the buses.
How could we put signs on buses *we didn’t have*?
Zing! Take that, Ottawa transit.