Last Thursday, Redevelopment Director Linda Daniels said a member of her staff had informed the sign company about the 90 complaints the city received regarding the billboard.
"We contacted the sign company and asked if there was a way to get it removed," Daniels told the Daily Bulletin.
Christina Caldwell has written a thoughtful and positive piece on the FFRF billboards in Phoenix for Arizona State University's student newspaper online.
A group of us from the Phoenix Atheists Meetup had lunch today near one of the billboards and used the occasion for a photo op. This is one of the five billboards, which, contrary to my earlier descriptions, are all of the "Imagine No Religion" design. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen the "Beware of Dogma" design up, as well as the "Keep Religion Out of Politics" slogan. (If I obtain permission, I'll update this photo with one of the group shots, which can be seen at the Phoenix Atheists Meetup site.)
The Arizona Republic has a story up about the FFRF billboards coming to Phoenix, with quotes from a local atheist, clergy, and a legislator. The quotes from the atheist, Harold Saferstein of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix, and the clergyman, Bob Mitchell, senior pastor at Central United Methodist Church, are both quite reasonable. The quote from the legislator, Sen. Linda Gray, not so much. She is quoted as writing in an email that "The FFRF fails to acknowledge history which recognized the strong Christian commitment of those who attended the Constitutional Convention." First of all, how does she know what FFRF "fails to acknowledge" unless she is very familiar with the organization, which I doubt. Second, it's Gray who's talking out of her hat. While most of America's Founding Fathers were nominally Christian, this was the same Constitutional Convention that voted against opening its meetings with prayers and produced a document that contains no references to a deity except in the year before the signatures ("Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth"). It is a document which explicitly says in Article VI that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Its primary author, James Madison, was a strong advocate of strict separation of church and state who thought that even government-paid legislative chaplains were a violation of religious liberty.
Mitchell, the pastor quoted in the story, is quoted as saying "I don't have a problem with people expressing their points of view in public. ... I would prefer that there was serious tolerant dialogue that might emerge from this publicity campaign because it is much needed." The article says he hoped that there would be no backlash against the billboards, but would not be surprised if it happened. I agree with him.
(My previous posts on the FFRF billboards coming to Phoenix are here, here, and here.)
UPDATE: The Arizona Republic fails to note that much of the money for these billboards was raised by the Phoenix Atheists Meetup Group.
Here are the specific billboard locations:
The five new billboard locations are confirmed and approved by CBS Outdoor. They are on surface streets all within 1 to 3 miles of central Phoenix. Billboards are numbered and say CBS on them.
#2501 Start Date: August 29 Cross Streets: 19th Ave & Fillmore. Located just west of the State Capital area on 19th Ave. Best viewing occurs while traveling northbound on 19th Ave just prior to Fillmore. The sign is on the west side of 19th Ave. This location is within a few blocks of the Capital Complex.
#2701 Start Date: August 29 Cross Streets: Van Buren & 15th Ave. Located just north east of the State Capital area on Van Buren. Best viewing occurs while traveling eastbound on Van Buren just prior to 15th Ave. The sign is on the south side of Van Buren and is located within a few blocks of the State Capital complex.
#2821 Start Date: August 29 Cross Streets: Indian School & 23rd St. Best viewing occurs while traveling westbound on Indian School Rd just after 23rd St. The sign is on the south side of Indian School Rd.
#2911 Start Date: August 29 Cross streets: McDowell & 14th St. Located just northwest of the downtown area on McDowell Rd. Best viewing occurs while traveling eastbound on McDowell just after 14th St. The sign is on the north side of McDowell. The Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center is within a few blocks.
#2945 Start Date: August 29 Cross Streets: McDowell & 3rd St. Best viewing occurs while traveling westbound on McDowell. The sign is on the southwest corner of McDowell and 3rd St.
UPDATE: I was interviewed today by Brian Webb of KNXV-TV ABC 15 News and by Melissa Gonzalo of KPNX NBC 12 News about the billboards, as a local member of FFRF and the Phoenix Atheists Meetup Group. Their stories should air tonight, at 5 or 6 p.m. on 15 and at 6 p.m. on 12. The NBC story should appear on their website after it airs, and both suspected that the stories would air again with footage of the actual billboards on Friday.
This story has also been covered by NPR locally, and is the subject of a very poorly worded poll on Fox News 10, which seems to think that the only two possible reactions to the billboard are not be offended because it's free speech (not because you agree with it) or to be offended because America needs religion. P.Z. Myers has pointed Pharyngulites to the poll, so at least it has a sizable majority supporting freedom of speech.
UPDATE: The Channel 15 interview aired at 5 p.m. and I was happy with the result. (This video is two segments, one 0:41 segment that I'm not in, and a 1:36 segment where I appear from about 0:49 to 0:52.) Here's the video I appear in:
The Channel 12 interview aired at 6 p.m., and Melissa Gonzalo did a better job--she spent more time in the interview, and her piece came out better, in my opinion (but what's with the "Billboard Battle" tagline? What battle?). It's here:
The FFRF billboards planned for Phoenix that were supposed to be launched on August 18 have been postponed after CBS Outdoor became uncomfortable with the "Imagine No Religion" slogan. They have decided to apply an analogue of their policy requiring that billboards advertising alcohol and tobacco, which must be at least 1000 feet from any school or church.
Apparently CBS Outdoor considers atheism to be equivalent to alcohol or tobacco, unfit to be advertised near sensitive churchgoers or students.
They are probably within their rights to do this--they own the billboards--but their belief that this is a sound business decision is pretty absurd and cowardly. (I haven't actually seen the contracts, but I suspect they are crafted in such a way to leave themselves the option to move locations or even cancel the contract if there's a whiff of controversy that they'd prefer to avoid.)
I suspect the locations of the billboards are unlikely to make much difference about whether controversy is generated, but this change gives CBS Outdoor something they can appeal to in response to criticism--see, we tried to be sensitive to religious concerns about the expression of disagreement.
The new locations are likely to be approved on Monday, and I'll report here what they are. I'm actually surprised that there are any billboard locations in Phoenix that aren't within 1000 feet of a church or a school.
The FFRF billboards are going to start earlier than planned, and unfortunately the first one will be up on August 18, when I'll be in Maryland.
Here's the new schedule:
Billboard #2501 Start Date: August 18 -- 19th Ave. and Fillmore Billboard #2005 Start Date: August 25 -- Jefferson and 13th St. Billboard #2911 Start Date: August 25 -- McDowell and 14th St. Billboard #1103 Start Date: September 1 -- 3rd Ave. and Van Buren Billboard #1245 Start Date: September 8 -- 7th St. and Coolidge
Each billboard will be up for one month, so the billboards will be up from August 18 to October 8 instead of from September 1-October 1.
It's official, the contracts have been signed and paid for--the Freedom From Religion Foundation's billboards will be coming to Phoenix. There will be five of them, all in central Phoenix, and both of the FFRF's designs will be represented. There's the "Imagine No Religion" billboard, pictured here in Denver, and another design that says "Beware of Dogma."
The billboards will appear starting September 1, and I'll post some photos once they're up. The billboard locations will be:
#1103 Cross streets: 3rd Ave & Van Buren. Located on 3rd Ave just north of Van Buren. Best viewing occurs while traveling northbound on 3rd Ave approaching Van Buren. At this intersection look forward and right. The sign is setback from a parking lot which makes for clear viewing and efficient picture taking. The Arizona State Capital, Phoenix City Hall, FOX News, and the Arizona Republic are all within a few blocks.
#1245 Cross streets: 7th St & Coolidge. Located just north of the downtown area on 7th Street. Best viewing occurs while traveling southbound on 7th Ave just south of Camelback Rd but just prior to Coolidge. The sign is on the east side of 7th Street.
#2005 Cross Streets: Jefferson & 13th St. Located just east of the downtown area and Chase Field on Jefferson Street. Best viewing occurs while traveling eastbound on Jefferson just after 13th Street. The sign is on the south side of Jefferson Street.
#2501 Cross Streets: 19th Ave & Fillmore. Located just west of the State Capital area on 19th Ave. Best viewing occurs while traveling northbound on 19th Ave just prior to Fillmore. The sign is on the west side of 19th Ave. This location is within a few blocks of the Capital Complex.
#2911 Cross streets: McDowell & 14th St. Located just northwest of the downtown area on McDowell Rd. Best viewing occurs while traveling eastbound on McDowell just after 14th St. The sign is on the north side of McDowell. The Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center is within a few blocks.
When these billboards have gone up in other locations, they've usually generated some protests and complaints, as well as competing billboards, such as this one in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania which accused atheists of hating America. That misses the whole point--the point is to let nonbelievers know that they are not alone, and to put them in touch with the FFRF and other local groups of people with similar opinions about the supernatural. One can certainly express disagreement with the sentiment (or the likelihood of a world without religion--I think it's unlikely that religion will disappear from the world as long as there are social groups of human beings on it), but a response that claims that atheists hate America or are engaged in persecution is to mistake reality for a caricature like the one depicted in Robby Berry's "Life in Our Anti-Christian America."
Funding for these billboards was a joint project of the FFRF and various Meetup groups led by some folks from the Phoenix Atheists Meetup group, which is now up to 411 members. There are plans for a followup billboard, for which funds are still being raised, which will advertise a website promoting a diverse set of groups of atheists, agnostics, humanists, brights, and freethinkers.
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