Australia is supposed to be a secular society, but the Atheist Foundation of Australia says the nation’s biggest outdoor advertising company has refused to run its advertisements.
One of the humorous messages the foundation hoped to put on the back of buses was, “Sleep in on Sunday mornings”.
But the foundation says Australia’s biggest outdoor advertising company, APN Outdoor, had a problem with it.
That does it. I’m boycotting all advertising from APN Outdoor. Next time there’s a billboard, I refuse to look.
Can APN Outdoor turn down the ads, since they are a private company after all? Well, this is some muddy water. A restaurant is a private company, but if they tried refusing atheist customers, they could expect some bad mojo. Even then, there are other restaurants I could go to. But here, APN has a monopoly on the right to sell ad space on buses — public buses at that.
If they were smart, they’d allow it. Every other religion would rush to copy the success of the atheist ads, and APN would be rolling in it. There might be a slight uptick in vandalism on some weeks, but that’s no reason to be a party pooper.
1 December 2008 at 11:57 pm
This news article just appeared in my RSS reader.
Boulder Atheist Launches Billboard Campaign
http://cbs4denver.com/local/Atheist.Launches.Billboard.2.877407.html
31 January 2009 at 11:59 am
There was history in the UK with the Christian ads that doesn’t apply here.
In Australia atheism is doing fine. Rudd refuses to admit Jesus is the son of God. Why stir up a hornet’s nest?