Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign

Campaign Launches First Ads In…South Bend!

We are announcing today that we have found our first bus system to run our ads: Transpo, in South Bend, Indiana. So when are the ads going up?

Today.

That’s right. When the 48 biodiesel buses of the Transpo fleet roll out of South Street Transfer Station Monday morning at 5 AM, our ads will be on the sides of 20 of them. In other words, if you ride the bus in South Bend, chances are that you’ll see our ad somewhere along Transpo’s 180 miles of routes. If you live in or around South Bend, take a look at Transpo’s Routes & Schedules page to find out where buses will be.

So, why did we choose South Bend? Several reasons:

• South Bend, unlike Bloomington, happily accepted our ads.
• Transpo not only serves South Bend itself, but the surrounding metro area, including Mishawaka and Roseland. The South Bend metro area is over 300,000 people.
• South Bend is home to Notre Dame University, where President Obama will be this weekend for the Catholic university’s commencement ceremony.  Maybe he’ll see our ad?
• Given South Bend’s diversity of religion, politics and other demographics, we think it’s a nice overall representation of Indiana.

We should hopefully have photos this afternoon. We’re overjoyed that we’re off to an awesome start with this campaign, and we thank each and every one of our supporters who have donated so far.

Here is the press release (RTF, 3.6 KB)

15 comments May 11th, 2009

WRTV Coverage of the Campaign

Yesterday evening, WRTV 6News in Indianapolis did a short segment on the campaign.  Here it is:

They’re also running a poll on their website about whether the ad should go up or not.

Add comment May 9th, 2009

Bloomington Rejects ‘You Can Be Good Without God’; Lawsuit Underway

Bloomington was first on the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign’s list of places it hoped to run bus ads.  However, the city has rejected our campaign’s slogan, ‘You Can Be Good Without God.’ This is deeply disappointing to our campaign’s members; we all love Bloomington and were very much hoping to run ads in our hometown along with many other cities.

Following their rejection of our ad’s slogan, Bloomington Transit referenced their ad policy, which currently states that they may reject any ad they feel is ‘too controversial.’

However, we are not giving up. Today the ACLU of Indiana, on behalf of the campaign, is filing a lawsuit against Bloomington Transit on First Amendment grounds. No campaign donations will be spent on the suit.

Here is the filed complaint (PDF, 172 KB)

Here is the press release (RTF, 4.4 KB)

Meanwhile, we are moving forward with efforts in other cities, and we will be announcing more very soon.  We want to bring our message many places, and this rejection motivates us more.  If you’re like us and want to see a positive message about atheism in your community, please donate.  We still have a long way to go, and you can help us get there!

34 comments May 5th, 2009