First thought, and I know most people here won’t agree with this, but NZ Bus is a private business and has every right to turn down the atheist ad campaign. Being privately owned they are within the law to remove the ads if they receive negative feedback, which they obviously received, and there must have been enough in proportion to the amount of feedback in support of the ads, to warrant taking them down. They are just following the basic practice of business.

Second thought. Putting these ads up in New Zealand is a superfluous exercise. Atheists and other non-believers aren’t really maligned and discriminated against in NZ, nor do we have a problem with electing them to government, as both John Key, our current PM, and his predecessor Helen Clark, are agnostics. Additionally, as evidenced by the examples NakedCelt pointed out, Kiwis aren’t exactly that fond of religious organisations interfering in politics. Political collusions with the Exclusive Brethren led to the National Party losing the 2005 elections, and the extremist views of the Destiny Church have prevented its political arm from gaining any traction in government.

Religion isn’t much of a problem here in New Zealand, especially not like other countries like the USA, even though there is a minute population of fundamentalists here, so as to why NZ atheists here are essentially trying to import that problem into the country, along with its accompanying culture war, is beyond all reason. We should be trying to stay out of the war rather than getting involved.


By the way, here’s the link to the article, fixed:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3366649/Atheists-claim-bias-over-rejection-of-No-God-ads

Plus another article from the same website:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3368326/No-God-bus-campaign-stalled