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Apparently people have been contacting Lamar and angrily voicing their outrage. While the zeal is appreciated, so far we don’t have an answer to what happened, and it’s an open question as to what action (if any) CFI Canada will take.

Recently, Centre for Inquiry Canada arranged to bring the notorious “Atheist Bus Campaign” to the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia. The Okanagan is well-known to be a bastion of religiosity, which made the need for atheist outreach in that community all the more crucial. After wrangling with BC Transit, the city of Kelowna, and the advertising company that publishes the ads, CFI Canada was finally able to outfit two busses with the ad’s simple message: There’s Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.

There was the predictable rigamarole from pearl-clutching believers, outraged that anyone would dare suggest that they don’t believe in some kind of sky genie, with some drivers flatly refusing to drive the offending vehicles. However, for the most part, people went on with their lives. One church actually welcomed the ads as an opportunity for outreach and discussion:

First, I think this is a good thing. I’m excited about the dialogue this will open! People will be talking about God, and any conversation about God is better than no conversation about God.  My prayer is that people will ask me what I think, and it will open up an opportunity to share why I have placed my faith in God through Jesus.  I love that!

But the whole thing was essentially a non-issue. It was a way to establish that atheists do live in Kelowna, and that there is an organization there that represents their interests.

On Monday, the ads had gone missing.

It’s not like they’re held on with velcro or chewing gum – these bus ads are meant to withstand winter weather, rain, wind, and exposure. They are held on with strong adhesive – they don’t just slip off on the side of the road somewhere. They certainly don’t just slip off in pairs. There’s only one logical, rational explanation for this disappearance: they were taken into the sight of Jesus in a localized mini-Rapture. How else can you explain them vanishing without a trace (a source inside the bus company said that it looks like they were ‘professionally removed’ due to the lack of residue – who’s more professional than Jesus?)

Of course they weren’t raptured. They were removed by someone with the time, training, and tools to remove a billboard from a bus, and who had the access to the busses for long enough to accomplish that. The only time that busses are left completely alone are when they are not in operation – at the terminal at night-time. The terminal is protected by a fence, and transit workers are there to perform maintenance after hours. And yet, it seems as though it’s no difficult feat for a random vandal to gain access to the yard, remove signs, and leave again without anyone noticing.

To add further insult to injury, Lamar – the advertising company responsible for creating and posting the ads – has told CFI Canada that the responsibility to replace the missing billboards is theirs. This, after being told that any vandalism to the signs would result in their immediate removal, reeks of the most egregious hypocrisy. Apparently in the ideological conflict between those who stand for the legal right to free speech and those that would silence dissenting minority opinions through illegal acts of censorship, Lamar has decided to side with the vandals. I wonder if they would say the same thing if a Jewish group’s ads were the victim of anti-Semitic graffiti – “yeah guys sorry about that… how much money have you got on you?”

While the official reaction from CFI has been somewhat diplomatic (“we don’t mind if people disagree with us, so long as they allow us our right to speak”), I think this goes beyond a simple issue of allowing people to have differing opinions. Whatever your feelings about the ad campaign – whether you think it’s too aggressive, not aggressive enough, unwelcome or unwarranted – you cannot in good conscience think that it is good policy to meet halfway with people who show their disagreement by committing acts of criminal censorship. CFI put those billboards up legally, and the message is entirely value neutral (although that is irrelevant). If we accept that it’s okay to remove a billboard because it says less-than-glowing things about religion, then we accept that it’s okay to tear down public health campaign posters for promoting vaccination, or pictures of interracial couples in retail ads because they might offend racists.

The level of rank cowardice required to try and surreptitiously remove an unpopular idea rather than confront it reveals a lack of confidence in one’s own position. Whoever is responsible for the removal of these billboards is a perfect example of why such a campaign is needed – because the forces of oppression will stop at nothing to silence anyone that doesn’t agree with their narrow worldview.

And while I am loath to make sweeping generalizations about religious believers (snicker), this particular action does reek of the particular brand of hypocrisy that is religious piety. But who knows? Maybe it was a mistake. Two mistakes. At the same time. Of the same billboard. I remain skeptical.