Holy shit. This bus poster must have been really bad. Except not really:
Or maybe it's horrible if you stare at it long enough? Or something?
The story:
Gov. Chet Culver weighed in on the controversial Des Moines bus ad that has been yanked after multiple complaints.
“I was disturbed, personally, by the advertisement and I can understand why other Iowans were also disturbed by the message that it sent,” Culver said.
The question will likely become a legal battle, Culver said. He deferred questions of whether the group deserves the same free speech rights as Christian organizations to advertise on the buses to the Iowa Attorney General.
[...]
It read, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone,” and was sponsored by the Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers group.
Unlike the original bus sign from England, which was a confrontational assertion of the agnostic atheist's position and an imperative to live happily regardless:
This Iowa bus sign is relatively docile by comparison. Instead of issuing a statement into the theological debate itself, it 1) acknowledges the existence of people who hold a specific position on the debate regarding the existence of God and 2) shows them a place where they can meet other people (online) who believe the same thing.
Logically, this means that Governor Culver is offended by a bus sign that acknowledges the existence of atheists.
Logically, this means that Governor Culver is a piece of shit, no doubt part of a hypocritical bloc in the states that has no problem with the pro-God, pro-life, pro-religion billboards and bus signs scattered across the country and gives little regard for how atheists feel about them. I'll tell you how we feel about them; it's irksome, but it's definitely not "offensive" unless it targets and slanders atheists specifically. I'll defend their right to display their signs regardless. But yeah, when atheists put up a bus sign of their own, we're "militant" and "offensive."
This is a tactic that has been used repeatedly against minorities who wish to call out and highlight double-standards or injustices (the former being the case here), namely the portrayal as minorities in the politicosphere as angry and unnecessarily confrontational: feminists are "bitches," gays are "militant," blacks are "ungrateful," and atheists are "offensive."
Regardless of how you feel about the bus signs (atheist or other), you have to acknowledge how effective they are at exposing this kind of hypocrisy from the Christian right.
Edit: I wrote this in kind of a hurry, so I'm glad Frank pointed this out: if you have to defer questions to your Attorney General about whether or not atheists should have the same free speech rights as Christian groups, you shouldn't be serving in elected office. Period.