PORTLAND -- A new ad campaign on TriMet buses is raising eyebrows. It asks, "Are you good without God?"
The ad banners are located on ten TriMet buses and they were purchased by the National Coalition of Reason. The organization also purchased billboards across the country, along with ads on buses in other cities, in an effort to spark discussion about the exhistance of God.
At the Beaverton Transit Center people were already talking.
"To me, it looks like they're promoting aethism and I would be against that," one TriMet passenger told KGW.
"I think we have freedom of speech and that's what it's all about," added another passenger.
Sylvia Benner from the Portland Coalition said the ads coincide with an upcoming speaking engagement for a Humanist chaplain at Reed College, the approaching Christmas season and a rare opportunity with TriMet.
"It is only when different ideas compete with each other that we can arrive at really good conclusions," she said.
Benner said her coalition represents groups of Portlanders who, simply put, don't believe in God.
"We are in a position now where we are accepting all pretty much a lot of different kinds of advertising. This being one of them," she explained.
In June of 2008, an Oregon judge ruled that if TriMet chose to put ads on its buses, it was placing itself in the same position as a government agency and must allow the constitutional right to free speech.
"We have been told by the trial court that we are a public forum and in that respect, we're allowing free speech and all kinds of messages are being allowed," said TriMet spokeswoman Becki Witt.
And so the advertisements roll forward and TriMet, which said it neither approves or denounces the coalition's message, is now appealing the 2008 ruling. That appeal will go before a judge Monday morning.
