We have filed suit against the MTA for refusing to run our pro-Israel ads. Here is a section from the suit, and Pamela Geller has much more here:
Plaintiffs American Freedom Defense Initiative (hereinafter referred to as “AFDI”), Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer (collectively referred to as “Plaintiffs”), by and through their undersigned counsel, bring this Complaint against the above-named Defendants (also collectively referred to as “MTA”), their employees, agents, and successors in office, and in support thereof allege the following upon information and belief:
INTRODUCTION
1. This case seeks to protect and vindicate fundamental constitutional rights. It is a civil rights action brought under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging Defendants” restriction on Plaintiffs” right to engage in protected speech in a public forum created by Defendants based on the content and viewpoint of Plaintiffs” message (hereinafter “Free Speech Restriction”). Defendants” Free Speech Restriction prohibited Plaintiffs from displaying advertisements on MTA buses that travel throughout the City of New York.
2. Plaintiffs seek a declaration that Defendants violated their clearly established constitutional rights as set forth in this Complaint; a declaration that Defendants” Free Speech
Restriction violates the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as set forth in this Complaint; a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining the enforcement of Defendants” Free Speech Restriction as set forth in this Complaint; and nominal damages for the past loss of Plaintiffs” constitutional rights. Plaintiffs also seek an award of reasonable costs of litigation, including attorneys” fees and expenses, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and other applicable law.
The controversy is over this ad:
Geller explains the suit on WPIX in the video above and in “The battle for free speech and against the savages” in WND today:
[…] Howard Marcus of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) told me that our ad “contains language that, in our view, does not conform with the MTA’s advertising standards regarding ads that demean an individual or group of individuals.” The AFDI ad says, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad.”
The MTA’s problem is with the word “savage,” and mainstream media news reports have stated falsely that the ads are “anti-Muslim,” calling every Muslim a savage. Of course New York Daily News reporter Pete Donahue resorted to Muslim Brotherhood smears like “anti-Muslim” and “anti-Islam” when referring to me. It seems that the leftist media are unable to accurately report anything. I am, in fact, counter-jihad. The New York Post started out a bit more even handed, calling me merely “controversial,” although it described my ad as inflammatory. Truth is inflammatory.
Then in a follow-up piece the next day, I went from controversial to radical. Who is spiking Post reporter Jennifer Fermino’s Kool-Aid? Lay off the Muslim Brotherhood sources, Jen. I am a “radical”? Truth is radical. Morality is radical. But a genocidal ideology is not radical or savage. The media are utterly corrupt, and the culture is subsumed by evil and the inability or unwillingness to distinguish between right and wrong. In my new book, “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance,” I show just how bad things have gotten, and what we must do to stop this now.
The ad is actually referring to the Islamic jihadists who are determined to destroy Israel. And they are savage.
Tell me again why the word “savage” is inaccurate. Everyone is shocked (shocked, I tell ya) by the use of the word savage for savages. As long as the Palestinian Authority continues its savage policy to foment violence and promote hatred, and teaches its children to hate, the number of young Muslims willing to blow themselves up or to slit Israeli throats will continue to increase. That is savage. The Palestinian Authority propaganda of “Holocaust denial, racial slurs, anti-Jewish epithets and glorification of terrorists” is savage.
The targeting of civilians is savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit is savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. Munich was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage….