Yerushalmi, Muise, Geller, Spencer
Pamela Geller and I were in Boston today with our ace free speech lawyers, David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, as Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, heard arguments in our free speech case against the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA). The MBTA, predictably, allowed a controversial anti-Israel ad to run, even restoring it after taking it down because of a barrage of complaints, but denied our pro-Israel ad on the grounds that it was “demeaning.” (We wanted to run our ad reading, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”
Gorton was well-informed and focused his questions on the meaning of the words “jihad” and “savage.” It seems as if his decision will turn on whether or not he decides to accept the MBTA’s implausible argument that we demeaned all Muslims by calling Islamic jihadists “savages.”
Pamela Geller has a full account of today’s proceedings here.