Atheist Ads Banned In Vancouver Find A Home (PHOTOS)

An atheist ad campaign that was rejected by a Vancouver billboard rental company has found a home on the city's downtown transit shelters and on billboards in Burnaby.

The Centre for Inquiry (CFI) Canada, a charity that promotes a scientific world view, had approached Pattison Outdoor to rent space on their billboards for adverts they said featured, "parables that replace religious morality with humanist ethical wisdom."

The billboard company—owned by local businessman Jimmy Pattison—refused to run them, giving no explanation, Kevin Smith, CFI President said in an earlier press release. “They refused to identify a motive for their rejection or to supply guidelines governing their decision-making process.”

But the campaign was given a new lease of life when CBS Outdoor agreed to carry the posters on their spaces.

"It's a good vindication that the ads are perfectly acceptable," CFI spokesperson Justin Trottier told The Huffington Post B.C.

"They have never been found to have any issues, these ads, nor the various other atheist and skeptic ads CFI has run over the last three years."

Pattison Outdoor did not respond to The Huffington Post B.C.'s request for an interview on the matter.

There are two featured posters. One shows a man playing video games with the tagline, "Dave 27:1; Lead with your heart. Not with your bible." In the other, a smiling woman is accompanied by the words, "Jenn 13:1; Praying won't help. Doing will."

The CFI considered filing a complaint against Pattison Outdoor with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal when the ads were initially rejected, but Trottier said the group is now investigating what the appropriate course of action would be.