The infamous atheist bus ads stating “there’s probably no god” will run in BC and Halifax after all, thanks to Supreme Court of Canada decision (eight-nothing, no less!) stating that the transit authorities were being unnecessarily broad in their argument that they were merely trying to avoid controversy. Given that the transit authorities are perfectly fine with running other controversial ads, ads for religious groups, and ads for political parties, there’s no appreciable difference between avoiding controversy and censoring a group based on the transit authority board’s own beliefs.

It’s good to know, too, that a vocal minority won’t be able to simply scream and yell to get an ad pulled on the basis that it runs counter to their religion. I’d no sooner expect a protest of our atheist sign to be acceptable than a protest of a religious ad that said “there is a God, now get on your knees and repent”. Kicking up some sturm und drang to do away with sexism, racism, overt religious bigotry, and targeting inappropriate products at kids, however, I can get behind — so if our ad was specifically targeting one religion or another (e.g. “Christianity is wrong, get off your knees”), then that would be offensive and indefensible.

But since that’s not what we’re doing by merely stating our belief system’s core fundamental tenet, the Supreme Court got this one very, very right.