Rancho Cucamonga - Short On Imagination

What's up with the good people and Rancho Cucamonga, CA? The city had one of those Freedom From Religion Foundation billboards taken down after receiving 90 complaints. Are the citizens so insecure in their beliefs that they're afraid of this:



It's not like this is one of those "You'll Burn In Hell" fire n' brimstone billboards. There's no implied threat. There's only outreach for any who need a place to turn to. And is 90 complaints all it takes to get something done in Cucamonga? Well I've got great advice for Cucamongans who want to lower their city taxes!

Seriously...90 complaints. I guess that was enough for City Hall to overcome what little reservations they had about squelching freedom of speech. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin has the scoop:

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said the city's actions are "dangerously close" to censorship and a violation of the First Amendment.

"A city government has no business trying to dictate or influence the content of an advertising image, particularly one that's political and controversial as this is simply because some people don't like it and complained about it," Scheer said. "The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect speech that is unpopular, to protect the views that are in the political minority, as long as they don't cross the line and use the speech for some seriously unlawful purpose, which clearly did not happen here."

I can fairly guess that the number of complaints will rise just a little. I wonder how many it takes to get the billboard put back up and honor one of America's founding principles, Freedom of Speech? Until that happens, I'll consider the Rancho Cucamonga City Hall to be a bunch of close-minded unAmericans with unrejuvenated vaginas. And that's all I have to say about that.

(I hope you read the whole news article otherwise that's not gonna make any sense at all!)