A federal judge in NY ordered NY’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to display on their buses a very controversial ad. The ad refers to Muslims killing Jews. The judge rejected the argument that displaying the ad might incite terrorism or put people in harms way.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To those of you who are confused by this story, you are not alone. These ads were not placed by a Muslim group, they were placed by AFDI, a group run by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Even I wasn’t quite sure immediately what was happening here. These ads are a reaction to a previous ad campaign that was run by Muslims called “What’s Your Jihad?“.
“U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan said the ad from the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which had previously run in Chicago and San Francisco, was protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The ad portrays a menacing man wearing a scarf around his head
and face, includes a quotation “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us
close to Allah” attributed to “Hamas MTV,” and then states, “That’s His
Jihad. What’s yours?”
Koeltl said he was “sensitive” to the security concerns, but noted
that the MTA and Chairman Thomas Prendergast “underestimate the tolerant
quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the potential impact of these
fleeting advertisements. It strains credulity to believe that New
Yorkers would be incited to violence by ads that did not incite
residents of Chicago and San Francisco.”
