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ATLANTA (CNN)-- A controversial billboard from a national Atheist group was scheduled to go up in a heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn on Tuesday but was bumped when the owner of the building objected to the advertisement.
CNN first reported the billboards were targeting Muslim and Jewish enclaves with, "You know it's a myth ... and you have a choice," written on billboards in Arabic and Hebrew.
The Brooklyn billboard was in English and Hebrew. To the right of the text on the Hebrew sign is the word for God, Yahweh.
American Atheists president David Silverman said he went to the Brooklyn location when the billboard was scheduled to be put up with reporters and was surprised to see it was not being erected. "We sat there and watched and the billboard didn't go up," he said. "The Jewish landlord of the building saw the billboard and refused to let it go up," he said.
Silverman said it was a clear case of religious bigotry.
"It was very disappointing to me because I was raised Jewish," he said by phone from New York. "They've been the victims of religious bigotry and now they're the purveyors."
When reached by phone, Kenneth Stier the owner of the building that rejected the billboard in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, offered a polite "no comment" on the matter.
Silverman said the billboard has been moved out of the residential area and put up in a pricier spot off a major highway at no additional cost. He added that while it was nice to have more visibility, his group was specifically targeting that Brooklyn neighborhood.
Jim Cullinan, vice president for marketing & communications for Clear Channel told CNN in an e-mail, "We found space for both ads and this contract is being fulfilled," but would not comment on moving the billboard out of the residential area in Brooklyn.
"It is against our policy to comment on any of our advertisers' campaigns," he wrote.
Silverman said he was disappointed by the development. "We wanted to get into the residential neighborhood because so many Hasidic are closeted atheists," he said. He said they received over a dozen e-mails from closeted atheist Hasidim who thought they were alone until news of the ad campaign broke.
"This is why atheists need to come out of the closet," Silverman said.
Silverman again reiterated the signs advertise the American Atheists' upcoming convention and an atheist rally, called the Reason Rally, in Washington scheduled for April.
Atheists have long pointed to surveys that suggest atheists and agnostics make up between 3% and 4% of the U.S. population. That number increases when Americans unaffiliated with any religion are included. The Pew Center's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that 16% are unaffiliated, though only a fraction of those are avowed atheists and agnostics.
Silverman told CNN last week he knew that the pair of new billboards will cause a stir.
"People are going to be upset," he said. "That is not our concern."
"We are not trying to inflame anything," he continued. "We are trying to advertise our existence to atheist in those communities. The objective is not to inflame but rather to advertise the atheist movement in the Muslim and Jewish community."
