Rep. Cohen seeks to declare 2012 as "The Year of Religious Diversity" in PA

I published a new Examiner.com article titled "Rep. Cohen seeks to declare 2012 as "The Year of Religious Diversity in PA." Below is the first paragraph of the article. For the entire article, click the above link.

Following Pennsylvania's House of Representatives declaring 2012 as "The Year of the Bible," Rep. Mark B. Cohen -- a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives representing the 202nd legislative district -- has sent a memorandum to members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives asking for co-sponsorship of a proposed resolution declaring 2012 as “The Year of Religious Diversity” in Pennsylvania which “recognizes and celebrates the religious diversity encompassed by Pennsylvania as a fulfillment of the vision of William Penn.” Mentioned in the proposed resolution within the memorandum -- among various other religious affiliations or lack thereof -- are “many who claim no religious affiliation,” non-believers, Unitarians and Buddhists. 

COLTS removes controversial ads from their website to cover their tracks

On the left, you can see only one sample ad for the front of COLTS buses, but on the right (in an old version of COLTS' website) you can see multiple fronts in which one link shows the "Old Forge Times" website. COLTS is seemingly taking sample ads down from their website in order to hide their steps with a tremendous deal of subterfuge. (Click to enlarge.)

In a previous post, I had written about how COLTS -- a bus company in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania which receives federal, state, and county funding -- refused the most inoffensive bus ad ever that simply says "Atheists." I had also described how COLTS is discriminating and/or otherwise picking and choosing the messages they put on buses while hiding under the guise of "We don't want anything that causes controversy or public debate" while pointing out the fact that COLTS previously featured advertisements containing "Consider adoption...it works!" and an ad for "Old Forge Times" (a website containing antisemitic links, holocaust denial websites, and white supremacist websites) [See a screenshot of the controversial links here].

Before I started to author my previous blog post, I noticed that their sample ad for "Consider adoption...it works!" was taken down. Now, when I had looked on the most updated version of their advertisement page, COLTS removed the advertisement for "Old Forge Times."

This is silly. COLTS seems to acknowledge that they are picking and choosing the messages which they select...and when they get 'called out' on it, they are seeming to remove old ads they had on their website.

COLTS, stop trying to cover your tracks and accept our message already. You're going to lose this battle and be forced to put up our ads. Stop squelching free speech and cease this discrimination.

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Look at an older archived version of COLTS' website in the WayBack Machine to see the ads that were previously shown on COLTS' website.

Here they are!




Ad for "Old Forge Times" on Wayback Machine [Controversial screenshots of page here]

"Consider adoption...it works" from the Wayback Machine