Anti-Muslim ads on SEPTA buses

Now for the bad news: One such eager advertiser is the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an anti-Muslim outfit that hopes to bombard SEPTA bus riders (as well as pedestrians) with ads proclaiming “Jew Hatred: It’s in the Quran.” These ads are helpfully illustrated by a photograph of Adolf Hitler meeting with an Arab nationalist in 1941.

Here, at last, is one point on which Jews, Muslims, Christians, and atheists can agree: This is not what you need when you’re heading home after a hard day at work. And you wonder why some people would rather fight expressway traffic in the privacy of their own gas-guzzler?

Now for the worse news: A federal judge ruled last week that SEPTA can’t reject these ads. To do so, said Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg, would violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

Boycotts and death threats

I trust that my own credentials as a champion of free speech are beyond question. As editor of several publications dedicated to “giving voice to the voiceless,” I have often published opinions that were offensive, stupid, hateful, and sometimes downright idiotic. In the process I’ve defended seven libel suits (all successfully) and survived countless advertiser boycotts and death threats, not to mention a protest walkout by 300 students (at Overbrook High in 1990), an invasion of my office at the Welcomat (by ACT-UP activists, also in 1990), and, of course, a global Internet petition on which 30,000 people demanded my dismissal from Broad Street Review in 2011.

Had the American Freedom Defense Initiative submitted an anti-Muslim essay to me, I would have published it — and also happily published responses to it (most likely including my own). That’s what the process of open dialogue is all about.

But with all due respect to Judge Goldberg, this SEPTA ad controversy is not about freedom of speech. It’s about the right of a business — in this case, SEPTA — to create an appealing environment for its customers.

Massage parlors, strip clubs, pornographers, and escort services may be perfectly legal businesses, but the Philadelphia Inquirer declines to accept their ads, presumably because doing so would annoy its readers and drive away other advertisers. By contrast, Philadelphia Weekly and the City Paper gleefully accept such ads, and in fact might well go out of business without them. This is a choice that every business confronts. It’s a matter of asking, “What sort of audience do I want, and how can I cultivate it?”

My doctor’s videos

The American Freedom Defense Initiative has every right to promote its message in its own leaflets, publications, and websites. But it has no right to force its message upon someone else’s publications — or, in this case, someone else’s premises.

Ah, you say — but SEPTA isn’t a publication. It’s a tax-supported public agency. That’s true — but it’s a transportation agency, and a monopoly to boot. As such, SEPTA's first obligation is not to its advertisers but to its riders.

I once patronized a doctor who routinely bombarded his patients with video ads about his cosmetic surgery services and skin-care products while they sat in his waiting room. I exercised my freedom of choice by finding another doctor. But SEPTA’s hassled riders, most of them, have no travel alternative if they’d rather not be subjected to religious harangues.

What newspapers do

SEPTA’s current policy prohibits advertising that “disparages” any person or group “on the basis of race, religious belief, age, sex, alienage” — whatever that is — “national origin, sickness, or disability.” In his opinion last week, Judge Goldberg noted that SEPTA had previously accepted potentially offensive ads on such topics as animal cruelty, teacher seniority, contraception, religion, and fracking. So it hasn’t been consistent in applying its anti-disparagement policy, he said. (To read Judge Goldberg's full opinion, click here.)

Which may be so. But if SEPTA can be faulted here, it’s for setting its policy too specifically. SEPTA would be better off doing what most astute newspapers and magazines do: Somewhere in the boilerplate type that nobody reads, they print a disclaimer along the lines of, “The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertisement.”

SEPTA says it may appeal Judge Goldberg’s ruling, but the American Freedom Defense Initiative has already won similar battles over its ads on transit systems in New York, Boston, and Seattle. So what can be done to prevent this obnoxious group from driving offended SEPTA customers away from trains and buses to taxis, bicycles, lorries, jitneys, buggies, Segways, and plain old shoe leather?

How to respond

“The American tradition is to respond with speech of our own,” an attorney for the local chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations told the Inquirer. “You can be sure we will.”

A noble idea. But precisely how? Allow me to suggest a few response ads, to be placed strategically next to the AFDI’s anti-Muslim ads. I encourage you to submit your own ideas as well.

• We know what you’re thinking: This ad is bigoted and mean. We agree. But the court made us post it. So please — take it with a grain of salt. — Your friends at SEPTA.
• Remember what Emerson said: One’s opinion of others is a reflection on oneself. So what does that tell you about the folks who placed this ad? — Your friends at SEPTA.
• “Jew Hatred in the Quran?” My Jewish relatives fled Christian Europe in terror to find safe refuge in Muslim Spain for 700 years and the Muslim Ottoman Empire for another 400. — Dan Rottenberg.
• Now for the good news: All advertising revenues from the American Freedom Defense Initiative will be donated to the Council on American Islamic Relations — and the courts can’t stop us! — Your friends at SEPTA.