Judge orders New York subway ads: jihad is 'savage'

Hot Ramadan rhetoric in the electronic village

Pamela Geller of "Atlas Shrugs"

“The Zionists created that blasphemous film. They did it to enrage Muslims and provide the USA with an excuse to send in drones.” - English language Islamic Jihad website(click)

New York – Where else but the Apple, where Madison Avenue dominates the media and world culture is reduced to 30-second spots and billboard slogans?

Gothamites boarding the MTA at 10 stations will see a political ad that debuted on San Francisco's Muni Railway earlier this month terming Islamic jihad savage and calling for its defeat.

Thirty people have died in worldwide violence since a Coptic Christian distributed a video that mocks the image of Mohammed the Prophet and the notion of conversion of infidels to the Islamic faith through jihad in a 14-minute YouTube presentation.

So far, the only extreme reaction to the posters in San Francisco has been defacement of certain words such as “savage” and “jihad.”

A blogster named Pamela Geller launched the campaign. She publishes“Atlas Shrugs,” which is an internet publication aimed at diminishing the influence of Islamic sharia dietary law and religious culture in America.(click) 

The website and Ms. Geller first gained recognition in her protest of an Islamic mosque and cultural center located very close to Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Center twin towers demolished in the 9/11 attacks.

Ms. Geller has gone to federal court to obtain an order that allows her to display her advertisement. The judge ruled that it's protected speech – to be considered both religious and political - and thus privileged.

She is preparing a similar application for a federal injunction that would allow her to display her advertisement on public transport vehicles and at stations in Washington, D.C., where they were rejected for similar reasons by officials who fear an Islamic backlash.

A Muslim subway patron interviewed by a New York publication told a newsman, “If you don't want to see what happened in Libya and Egypt after the video – maybe not so strong here in America – you shouldn't put this up.

“But if this is a free country, they have the right to do this. And then Muslims have the right to put up their own ad.”

Filmmaker arrested for probation violation

Ms. Geller's motto is “You can avoid evil, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding evil.”

In a current edition of “Atlas Shrugs,” she quotes Geoffrey Stone, a legal scholar and former dean of the law school at the University of Chicago.(click)

"Since 1838, there have been only a handful of blasphemy prosecutions in the United States, and a broad consensus has emerged that Jefferson and Adams had it right. In 1952, the Supreme Court of the United States finally put the matter to rest in Burstyn v. Wilson, holding in a unanimous decision that "it is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine" or to protect "any or all religions from views which are distasteful to them." The First Amendment, the Court declared, renders any such government action unconstitutional. Religions and religious figures, like political parties, politicians, businessmen, and other members of society are fair game for criticism, condemnation and even mockery...





"Apply this to the current situation, and the implications are obvious. If we punish American citizens for engaging in otherwise constitutionally protected speech in order to prevent foreign terrorists from engaging in violent acts, then we cede to those very terrorists the meaning of the First Amendment. That doesn't sound very promising, does it?"