News & Blog

The Salt Lake City Tribune just ran an article about our attempts to secure advertising space for our 2014 National Convention in Salt Lake City and the repeated denials we experienced from local billboard companies.

From the article:

In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, YESCO wrote: “We believe that our medium is an effective outlet for free speech. However, we balance that with a strong commitment to adhere to community standards and to ensure that the messages we advertise are not offensive towards any business, group or individual. … In rare instances, we reject advertisements that we find to be misleading, deceptive or offensive to the moral standards of the community.”

The first design we submitted to YESCO is below. The idea was to have multiple billboard with local atheists (who happened to be former Mormons) talking about who they are.

The billboard is a spoof on the “I’m A Mormon” ad campaign run by the LDS church. This design was immediately rejected by the billboard company because we used the word “Mormon.”

After that was rejected, we submitted these designs:

Don’t they look happy? Or are they “misleading” somehow?

Multiple families had volunteered to be in this billboard.

We had arranged to have students from a local Secular Student group appear in this ad.

Note that we even dropped the use of the word “Mormon.” We didn’t even say “Christian,” just “religious.” So these are the billboards which are “misleading, deceptive or offensive to the moral standards of the community.”

Right.

For more information about our 2014 National Convention in Salt Lake City and to purchase tickets, please visit the convention page.