Pamela Geller has the story:
As I predicted after witnessing our hearing in our landmark “Leaving Islam” case back in July, the Sixth Circuit has ruled that SMART was justified in rejecting our ads because Islam is political. So does that open the door to removing the religious protections afforded this political system (sharia) that assets authority over non-Muslims?
Our ad was a religious ad. The intention was to save lives like that of Rifqa Bary (Noor Almaleki, Amina Said, Sarah Said, Jessica Mokdad, et al). The court, in a tortured and twisted opinion, said it was a political ad. Even so, all religious speech is political. The Constitution says so. It’s protected as a political right under the first amendment.
The court ignored Beth Gibbons’s testimony — the actual woman who made the decision for SMART, who said it was NOT political. This court wanted to reach a certain result. Neither the facts nor the law grants them that option. The court chose to change the facts (Gibbons’ testimony).
This is where we are with a hostile judiciary . . . .we will first ask for a full court rehearing on this matter (we will be filing a petition for rehearing en banc within 14 days). Moreover, this is just a preliminary ruling, and not a final ruling on the merits. We intend to engage in aggressive discovery to demonstrate on a complete record that SMART”s speech restriction was arbitrary and ultimately unconstitutional. This case is not over. Not by a long shot.