At Thanksgiving and Christmas in recent years, the pagans always work to make their presence felt and to remind us they don’t believe in God. We get their point. In Washington, there is a campaign by a humanist group featuring ads on the subway. But at least the humanists are paying for the ads.

In Britain, an atheist group is getting the equivalent of $50,000 in taxpayer money to put ads on buses that say there “probably is no God.” The group also wants to end all faith schools and withdraw official recognition from the Church of England as the state church.

A free society guarantees them the right to make any claims they want, but why are already overburdened taxpayers, some of whom still believe in God, forced to pay for the speech of others? Let them stand on street corners and handout leaflets. Let them gather in public parks and deny God all they want. But having taxpayers pay the bill for promoting atheism is an outrage. In Britain, there are many outrages. I wonder how many have stopped to consider whether these outrages are in major part a result of unbelief?

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.