Grand Rapids to FFRF: Take Your Business Elsewhere.
Sunday, March 9th, 2008The Freedom From Religion Foundation attempted to rent billboards in Grand Rapids, MI, as part of their Beware Dogma campaign. They were turned down.
“This is new, that a billboard company is censoring us,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The Madison, Wis.-based group, dedicated to the separation of church and state, bills itself as North America’s largest group of atheists and agnostics with 12,000 supporters.
The billboard with the words “Beware of Dogma” and the group’s Web address has been used around the country, she said.
Gaylor said CBS Outdoor Advertising in Grand Rapids declined to rent a billboard to Freeedom From Religion, telling her it had been through controversy in the past and community reaction would force the billboard down within a day. She is working with other area firms, she said, but their locations are not her first choice.
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The billboard has been placed in such cities as Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta as well as in Chambersburg, Pa., where it “created a firestorm,” Gaylor said. “The billboard company badmouthed us, but took our money and put it up.”…
“Community reaction would force the billboard down within a day”? How violent a community reaction did they previously experience that would cause them to turn down legitimate business? Or do they just consider atheist customers less important than their other customers? I get the impression that it’s a little bit of both.
As to the billboards I’m perplexed over the controversy. Churches and religious organizations put up billboards routinely with no opposition from atheists. Yet when atheists, in the interests of free speech, attempt to put their own billboards there’s a virulent backlash. Is it that believers cannot stand opposing views, or that they’re afraid minds might be opened?
I get the impression that it’s a little bit of both.
