Posted by Hemant Mehta in ***Update***: I need to clear up a mistake I unfortunately helped spread. The billboard was moved from its first location to a new one (as contracted). The plans still have it going to a third location. The billboard was not “taken down.” The company simply put up a response in the first location after the FFRF sign was moved.
I’ll change the relevant parts of the posting below to reflect that.
…
The Freedom From Religion Foundation had signed a contract with Kegerreis Outdoor Advertising LLC to put a billboard in the Chambersburg, Pennsylvania area, rotating about three different locations.
This is the billboard that was up:
Now, that billboard has been taken down moved. The original location now has a billboard that reads like this:
If you can’t read it, the fine print says “The previous sign posted at this location does not reflect the values or morals of our company. Thank you.”
I’m not sure what was so offensive about the FFRF’s bilboard. It merely posed a hypothetical.
And who would be so ignorant as to see a billboard promoting something and assume the billboard company was tacitly endorsing the product (or ripping down another)? (”That billboard is for Sprint?! The company must hate Verizon…”)
What was the reason for the takedown response?
Dusky A. Chilcote, senior account executive for Kegerreis Outdoor Advertising, Chambersburg, said the sign was posted Monday as the older sign, with the words, “Imagine No Religion,” was being removed.
“We received only a couple of negative calls about the (first sign),” Chilcote said on Monday. “We were concerned about the impact of how people see our company.”
Chilcote, a Christian, said she was personally hurt by the deception of the sponsor, who allegedly led her to believe the sign was presented by a local church.
She said in December that the sponsor of the billboard had contacted her and said “their desire was that people would have the freedom to walk into any church they choose.”
I asked FFRF’s co-presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor if that statement was accurate. I am awaiting a response.
***UPDATE***: Annie Laurie responded and said this:
I have no idea how or why she could make an assumption that our group was a church! How could we, with our name? I have to assume she is either making things up because she felt she had to cover herself from criticism, or she was so religious she couldn’t believe a group like ours existed. One can only speculate.
(Thanks to Ben for the link!)
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
Someone call the ACLU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do understand the company though. They received complaints about it and THAT is what is wrong here. Christian have way too much power, influence and support from everyone like politicians and the justice.
It almost makes you wanna quit fighting, but that just won’t ever happen.
The real problem here is that roughly 75% of this country is Christian. Of those people, a very sizable portion have shown a consistent history of boycotting anything and everything that shows a hint of blasphemy or of somehow being opposed to Christianity. When these people decide to boycott, the moderates are in a position where they can either maintain their virtues of equality and free speech or feel like they’re doing something good for God by joining the boycott. This amounts to businesses losing a large fraction of their sales, and forces them to appease the boycotters. What can the non-believing population do about this? Well, we could hope that someday they behave like we do every time we see another of those billboards signed by God, i.e. averting our eyes and grudgingly accepting their business, thereby allowing the billboard to stay up, while still maintaining our virtues of equality and free speech. Or, we could act like maniacs and possibly alienate a few people by vocally boycotting the business, and watch as the business loses a very small fraction of their sales and does nothing to gain them back. Furthermore, the business will probably regain their lost sales twice over by the fundies who want to do something good for God by patronizing the business that those evil atheists hate so much. There’s really nothing we can do but wait until non-believers make up a sufficiently large portion of the country, and that’s probably not going to happen in any of our lifetimes.
[...] an atheist billboard was taken down and replaced with one reading “The previous sign posted at this location does not reflect the [...]