The wheels on the bus go, "OMG -- this zealotry is nutty!"

[meegbear]

Taking the bus can be annoying. For starters, they're unpredictable. The schedule if the driver's, not your own. Especially in winter's cooling temperatures, the last place most of us want to find ourselves is standing outside waiting for public transportation to show up.

Also, they can be crowded. During heavy commuting times, you very well might find yourself with a purse jabbing your back, an elbow nearly missing your face, and three other booted feet smashing your own. And again, this is the cold season, when close chambers like the ones found on most buses become breeding grounds for sniffles and sneezes.

Oh, and another thing -- the buses are sometimes coated in ass-crazy dogma, the likes of which denies God's love for gays and warns of America's impending destruction. Or at least that's what D.C. commuters might soon be facing if Westboro Baptist gets their way:

WBC to launch a responsive as campaign on the side of D.C. buses dierctly responding to athiest as campaign in Washington area - to begin December 1st. Please see the attached letter to CBS Outdoor, regarding buses available for ads for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority. To view draft mock-ups of the proposed ads, please use the link, ...

...

I will not give the link; you can see it from accessing the link below. Here are some of the "proposed ads":











http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2008/11/the-wheels-on-t.html

[terrya]

1. I just don't know what to say anymore about these pathetic excuses for human beings.

I just wish they would all die. Sooner rather than later.

[keepCAblue]

8. "Pathetic excuses for human beings"

That pretty much describes 52% of California's population

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I really wonder if they will allow such advertising on buses

especially the ones with God Hates America---even many conservatives would disagree with that. Hope all these messages are declared obscene and not allowed.

[mwooldri]

5. Not in the UK or Hong Kong.

I didn't think that double-decker buses were commonplace in America. Now UK and Hong Kong, yes...

[meegbear]

6. Some cities have them as city tour buses ...

NYC, for example, has Double Decker Tours

[mwooldri]

7. Yep, you are correct. NYC does have double-decker tour buses.

Just saying if these are proposed adverts on DC buses, why not use pictures of actual DC buses to mock up on? The bottom two buses can be found in Reading, England and Hong-Kong respectively. And AFAIK Washington DC doesn't have any actual double-decker commuter buses in service. Tour buses maybe... but not regular service ones.

Plus adverts like that wouldn't even see the light of day in the UK. The Advertising Standards Agency would be all over that one. There was enough eyebrows raised by the Humanist Society placing a simple ad saying something like "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." An ad stating "God Hates Fags" - unless the Fags in question happened to be a packet of Marlboro or a packet of Benson and Hedges then that kind of ad wouldn't be published, even in today's post-Christian UK.

Mark.

[cboy4]

3. This will be the response from CBS

Dear Rev Phelps,

Umm. No.

Cordially,
CBS


Of course, that kind of speech is not protected under the constitution.

In Schenck v. United States (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that freedom of speech could be restricted if the speech represented a clear and present danger.

Certain statement can be interpreted as "fighting words" and are therefore not protected.

And can you imagine the fall out for CBS? The boycotts and demonstrations.

The bottom line is a bunch of crazy rich fucks don't have the right to put their propaganda all over city public property.

[bluedawg12]

4. Could anyone take out an ad substituting Mormon or Catholic

for the "F" word? Or any other minority? No.
Why should hate speech towards gays be OK for the city?