"The bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news is that you don't need him."
That is the message that was to appear on city buses in Genoa, Italy. The advertising campaign had been planned by the Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics (UAAR). According to Giorgio Villella of the UAAR, the group had the artwork all ready and had even received a contract.
But at the last minute, the ad agency responsible for the buses decided not to run the ad. The reason they gave was that it violated a law concerning ethics in advertising. According to Villella, the UAAR received ferocious criticism from right-wing politicians before the ads were pulled.
Villella noted that the ethics code seems oddly selective in its targets. "It's strange that in a country where ads depicting near-naked women wearing skimpy lingerie is permitted on buses that we can't run ads about atheism."
Villella said that the campaign was not dead. The UAAR intends to file an appeal in court to have the agency's refusal overturned. They also plan to place the ads on buses in other Italian cities. Full story here ...