A few weeks ago, I posted an article about the new DC Metro Bus anti-God ad campaign.
Since then, there have been a number of pro-God counter-campaigns in DC (God believes in You, and the Foolish Atheist campaigns). One of the issues many rationalists have had with the response to the humanist ads is not the counter-ad campaign, but, instead, the complaints lodged with the DC Metro. In my campaign watch article, I noted that the DC Examiner reported that 251 complaints had been filed against Metro regarding the humanist ads, but only a single compliment. I joined together with a number of other bloggers and readers to reply boldly to those complaints with a commendation to Metro for not judging ad content, and by doing so, upholding the First Amendment. Our take on the situation was that it was within the rights of the counter-campaigners to put up their own ads, with their pro-God content, but there is no justification for trying to coerce Metro into choosing sides based on the content of those ads — i.e., chilling free speech.
My compliment (which, in Metro lingo is “commendation”) stated:
Please accept my thanks for granting equal opportunity to both the religious and non-religious advertisers. I ride the metro daily, and it’s nice to see that Metro hasn’t stifled the speech of any side, and has played fair, despite controversy.
Also, if you could get the escalators working, that’d be great, too.
Lo and behold, I got a response from Metro! I’m certainly happy that they took the time to respond, but I’m rather disappointed with the tone of the response. See if you recognize what I’m talking about — the tone of the response suggests that I was lodging a complaint, not a commendation: (emphasis mine)
Dear Mr. [X]:
Thank you for contacting the [Z] Line team via e-mail regarding a specific ad in the Metro System. We appreciate hearing your views about this topic.
As a public agency, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is constrained by the First Amendment with respect to accepting or rejecting advertising. WMATA makes no implied or declared endorsement of any ideology, product, service, or event by displaying advertisements in the transit system. We simply provide the medium for advertisers to use within the parameters of the First Amendment. We cannot reject an advertisement because an individual or group finds it offensive or inappropriate. In this instance, displaying the advertisement was consistent with the First Amendment and WMATA’s policy of remaining content-neutral.
As an individual, you may want to direct your commendation regarding this type of advertising to the advertiser. They are in the best position to explain their point of view and reason for the content.
I trust that this explanation will assist you in understanding the constraints within which WMATA’s administers its advertising program.Again, thank you for contacting the [Z] Line Team and we hope your future travel experiences on Metro are positive ones. To speak to a [Z] Line Customer Service Representative for Comments, Complaints or Suggestions, please call — weekdays between the hours of 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. You can leave a message at all other times or e-mail us at csvc@wmata.com.
If you ever need to speak with a Customer Information Agent for assistance with general questions, please call 202-637-7000; Mon-Fri. 6am.-10:30 p.m., Sat.- Sun: 7 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Sincerely,
[Y]
[Z] Line Customer Service Representative
Notice how the third paragraph makes absolutely no sense? You may want to direct your commendation to the advertiser so that you can understand why Metro was “forced” (I mean, that’s kinda what constrained means) to post this advertisement that you’re commending.
Replace “commendation” with “complaint” in the letter above, and, voilà, it makes sense.
I wonder if Metro blindly stamped my commendation as a complaint, based, say, on some OCR text-recognition filing system that created an automatic stock response (adjusted to reflect the subject matter), and filed it neatly away in the ever-increasing pile of complaints about those wicked atheists.
I plan on calling to find out. Stay tuned.
Tags: agency, Amendment, atheist, campaign, First Amendment, free speech, god, human, humanist, metro, metropolitan, minister, Procrustes, rational, Religion, rights, theist, Washington
I think they just confused "commendation" with "condemnation"
Obvious cut and paste response
Don't you just love boilerplate responses from your government? It's wonderful to see how much they read , comprehend and care about your letter.
Oh, by the way, nice comment about getting the escalators to work reliably. Give them something purposeful to focus on instead of worrying about advertising. However, I think most of the WMATA elevators are permanently broken.
Cut and paste, definitely. You could take the tikme to confirm, but I think it's wasted effort.
Im tired of full buses because its so crowded and you cant move around quite good. Peiple dont feel like standing for long period of time. Especially if the bus driver is not careful and slams on brakes and everybody falls. This happened on a 54 bus going towards lefant plaza the driver punched his brakes and everyone fell as i a witness saw this as i was sitting down.. Also one night from work i was taking the dc circulator the bus turned off and it happened four times and as we got further down the road he slammed on brakes because of a car that stopped too quickly and i almost flipped over my chair somethong need to be done where cars need to be seperate from buses like a completely different road because bus drivers cant see everything around.