From The New York Daily News…
Detroit bus system rejects ‘Leaving Islam?’ ads as ‘pure anti-Muslim hate’
By Anjali Khosla Mullany and Corky Siemaszko
Daily News Staff Writers
Motown has no use for the anti-Muslim ads plastered across the sides of buses in New York City.
Detroit’s SMART bus system has rejected the button-pushing placards that read “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?” — and direct Muslims to a Web site urging them to leave the “falsity of Islam.”
“It’s a purely anti-Muslim hate issue,” Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Detroit News on Friday.
“The SMART bus company, or any bus company, should not be used to marginalize a minority group.”
Defenders of the ads, dreamed up by Manhattan-based right wing blogger Pamela Geller and the New York-based Stop the Islamization of America, say it’s a free speech issue and they have sued.
“Americans have a right to know the truth; Islam is a religion of intolerance and violence,” said Michigan lawyer Richard Thompson, who filed the suit.
“Christians, Jews and other non-Muslim minorities are persecuted in every country where Islam dominates.”
The MTA has not tried to remove the 40 ads, which Geller said cost her group $10,000 for a one-month run, because they do not violate agency advertising guidelines.
In April, the Miami bus system at first rejected the ads but relented when Geller’s group threatened to sue.
A leader in the fight against the proposed mosque near Ground Zero who has Tea Party ties, Geller has been branded a bigot by CAIR and other groups.
She also caused a stir in the right-wing blogosphere by videotaping a denunciation of Palestinian terrorists — while dressed in a bikini.
In an interview with The Daily News, Geller said she didn’t care if Muslims were offended by the ads. “Will it bother Islamic supremacists? Yes,” she said.
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