A Tale of Three Bigoted Ads

Sheila Musaji

Posted Mar 15, 2012      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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A Tale of Three Bigoted Ads

by Sheila Musaji


American Atheists Billboard Ads

A group called American Atheists announced that they would place two billboards saying “You know it’s a myth… and you have a choice”, one in English and Arabic and one in English and Hebrew.  They planned to place one of these in the heart of a predominantly Orthodox Jewish community in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, N.Y., and the other close to a mosque in Paterson, N.J., which is home to a large Muslim population.

The billboard aimed at Judaism was successfully prevented from being posted near the Hasidic neighborhood and ultimately the American Atheists had to settle for a site about a mile and a half away from the predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

Both Muslims and Jews found the ads offensive.  However, the response from both communities was reasonable and tolerant.

The Huffington Post reported that Rabbi David Niederman, Executive Director of United Jewish Organizations (UJO) said the sign was offensive. “I don’t think the way one wants to reach out to a few people, is to put up a sign that antagonizes thousands of people,” he told The Gazette. “The name of God is very holy to all of us. And seeing his name being publicized and written in that manner really hurts every believing person.”  Spelling out the name of God is a practice forbidden in many conservative Jewish sects.”

Israel National News reports that

It is an emotional word, there will be an emotional response,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, dean of Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future. “People will look at it in a bizarre way. People won’t understand why someone needed to write that out.”

Rabbi Serge Lippe of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, a Reform congregation,  was more dismissive than outraged about the billboards and said that the “great thing about America is we are marketplace for ideas. People put up awful, inappropriate billboards expressing their ideas and that is embraced.”

The billboard aimed at Islam was posted, and as One Islam reports

American Muslims ignored a new billboard campaign launched by an atheist group targeting Muslims around New York City calling Islam a myth, saying it made it harder for people of different beliefs to build bridges.

“This is not the first time in history, and not the last time,” Mohamed El Filali, executive director of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, told NorthJersey.com ... El Filali, from the Islamic Center of Passaic County, ignored the campaign, adding it will make it harder for people of different beliefs to learn from each other.  “I respect people’s opinion about God; obviously they are entitled to it,” he told the CNN.  “I don’t think God is a myth, but that doesn’t exclude people to have a different opinion.”  But El Filali bemoaned the billboards as another example of a hyper-polarized world.  “Sadly, there is a need to polarize society as opposed to build bridges,” he added.  “That is the century that we live in. It is very polarized, very politicized.”

WNYC reports that Mustafa al-Mutazzim, an assistant Imam with Masjid AsHabul Yameen, a mosque in East Orange, New Jersey, has also seen the billboards, but he’s not losing any sleep over them.  “People have said worse,” said al-Mutazzim. He thinks while the billboard’s statement may make people uncomfortable, it’s also protected under law.  “We have certain constitutional rights, including the freedom of speech.”

NorthJersey.com reports that

Men leaving the mosque after prayer on Wednesday seemed neither perturbed nor unsettled by the billboard, and some even saw it as positive.

“It’s a knock on the door,” Abdul Hamid, 40, said as he crouched to get his shoes after noon-time prayer at the Islamic Center of Passaic County. “If they want to come and have an open dialogue with us that’s great.”

Anes Labsiri, a 39-year-old plumber, said he was happy people can question religion in public.  “Some people might see it as a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing. I love that you have this freedom in this country,” said Labsiri, who came from Morocco in 1998.

Mohamed El Filali, the mosque’s executive director, says he’s even planning to invite Silverman to join a panel discussion on science in the Quran later this month.

After prayer, the imam, Mohammad Qatanani, came outside to talk with Silverman, who was hanging around the neighborhood to watch for reactions to the sign.  The two discussed religion and tolerance; humanity and God.

“We have to accept everyone — we are all from dust and become dust,” Qatanani said. “Right?”  Silverman nodded his head, but added, “Well, yes, we’re all from raw matter.”


Freedom From Religion Foundation NYT’s ad

Another group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation placed an anti-Catholic ad titled “It’s time to quit the Catholic Church” in the New York Times.

This ad prompted Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of the hate groupsSIOA/SION to write an ad with very similar wording but anti-Muslim titled “It’s time to quit Islam” and submit it to the Times for publication. 

The New York Times (NYT) or any newspaper can accept or reject any advertising or other submissions.  We have a free press which means that they are free to make decisions about what they print.  Here is some information about that freedom to choose what is printed

The ADL article 20 frequently asked questions regarding extremist speech says:

May newspapers reject offensive advertisements submitted by extremist groups?

Yes. The First Amendment does not compel privately owned newspapers to provide a forum for the dissemination of the opinions of extremist groups. Publishers may use their editorial discretion to reject ads that they deem to be inappropriate for their publication.

Extremist groups—particularly those that deny the reality of the Holocaust—often attempt to place advertisements in university newspapers. In almost all such cases, student editors may reject the ads. The vast majority of student newspapers at public universities are run by students and are therefore not technically under government control. These newspapers, like student papers at private universities, are free to reject inappropriate advertisements. In rare instances, student newspapers at state universities are run by the school’s administration itself. In these cases, the First Amendment prohibits the paper from rejecting advertisements based on their content.

The First Amendment Center also answers this question:

Can a newspaper refuse to run a letter or advertisement?

Yes, newspapers do have a First Amendment right to refuse letters to the editor and ads. Since they are privately owned entities whose editors have editorial control, they are free to promote whatever political, social or economic view they wish.

The U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue of editorial control and freedom of the press in 1974 in the case Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241. This case concerned a Florida political candidate who brought suit against The Miami Herald pursuant to the state’s “right-to-reply” statute after the paper refused to print the candidate’s reply to editorials critical of him. The statute in question required a newspaper to provide equal space to a political candidate to reply to any criticism of the candidates’ personal character or official record printed by the newspaper. The Supreme Court found the statute to be unconstitutional in that it violated the First Amendment right to a free press.

The Court wrote:  “A newspaper is more than a passive receptacle or conduit for news, comment, and advertising. The choice of material to go into a newspaper, and the decisions made as to limitations on the size and content of the paper, and treatment of public issues and public officials — whether fair or unfair — constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment. It has yet to be demonstrated how governmental regulation of this crucial process can be exercised consistent with First Amendment guarantees of a free press as they have evolved to this time.”

In the case of these two ads, the NYT made two bad decisions.

The first bad decision was that they freely chose to accept and to print a bigoted anti-Catholic ad, providig a platform for the wide dissemination of the hateful content of the ad.  The choice to print that ad was reprehensible.  The ad should never have been accepted for publication in any respectable newspaper. 

The Times refused to print the anti-Muslim ad, as they should have done with the anti-Catholic ad.  But, then they made their second bad decision.  Rather than simply refusing the ad, or refusing it based on the fact that SIOA is a hate group, they said that they would consider publishing the ad in a few months, but that at this time “the fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.”  They also said “we publish this type of advertising, even those we disagree with, because we believe in the First Amendment.”

This decision seems to mean that the NYT is perfectly willing to publish bigotry unless there might be some negative consequences for doing so.  They are saying that it is “safer” to attack Catholics than to attack Muslims, therefore we will publish anti-Catholic ads, but not anti-Muslim ads. 

The Times placed the burden of their decision on one of the religious communities being attacked.

I suppose that means that if someone else sends an ad to the Times for publication titled “It’s time to quit Judaism” or “It’s time to quit Mormonism”, or any other religion, and, if they substitute the appropriate negative stereotypes and bigotry associated with that religion in the text of that ad, then the NYT would accept that ad.

After the NYT’s bad decisions, Pamela Geller called their refusal to print her ad an “abridgement of free speech in adherence to the sharia”.  Geller also took issue with a reporter who referred “to our ad as an anti-Islam ad. It is not. It is a rebuttal ad.”

Geller correctly refers to the anti-Catholic ad as “an anti-Catholic smear ad” but then calls the rejection of the anti-Muslim ad a “rejection of an [sic] SION ad telling the truth about Islamic jihad.”  She is unable to see that both of these ads are equally bigoted and hateful.

Geller’s freedom of speech has not been abridged.  She is free to say whatever she wants and to print what she wants on any website or in any newspaper that is willing to publish what she has to say.  Her ad is an equally offensive and bigoted ad, and describing it as a “rebuttal” is ludicrous.  You don’t rebut bigotry with more bigotry.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that any newspaper is required to publish what anyone wants to say.  The First Amendment gives newspapers the right to make editorial decisions without the state, or the courts, interfering with them.  It is up to the newspapers discretion.  For the Times to say in their letter explaining their decision that “we publish this type of advertising, even those we disagree with, because we believe in the First Amendment” would seem to show a serious misunderstanding of the first amendment and freedom of the press.

It doesn’t matter who the target of bigotry is, it is still bigotry.  There are moral and ethical issues here, but the way that the New York Times has handled this simply clouds those issues.

 

SEE ALSO:

A DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH BY AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MUSLIMS http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/a_defense_of_free_speech_by_american_and_canadian_muslims

MPAC Supports Effort to Combat Hatred Through Free Speech, Releases Critique of Global Blasphemy Law http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/mpac-supports-effort-to-combat-hatred-through-free-speech-releases-critique

 

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