From the Chicago Tribune: The controversial ads unveiled on the back of 10 CTA buses Wednesday read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” They conclude with the words, “Support Copts. Defeat Jihad,” referring to friction between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Within hours of the buses' first runs, messages appeared on Facebook and Twitter denouncing the campaign. Many said degrading a spiritual tenet of Islam -- one that refers to a Muslim's personal quest to become a better person -- amounts to hate speech.
“This whole campaign insinuates Muslims are violent,” said Asaf Bar-Tura, programs director for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, which protested the ads on social media Wednesday. “If it's within their legal powers, (CTA) should either not put it up because they incite hate and stereotypical thinking or put a label next to each sign saying `The CTA disagrees with this ad.’ ”
So far, federal judges have sided with the advertisement's sponsor, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which sued transit authorities in New York City and Washington, D.C., when they initially rejected the ads. Those judges ruled that public forums such as buses and trains can't bar advertising entitled to First Amendment protection.
Pamela Geller, executive director of the initiative, said she believes the Jewish Council has good intentions, but denies that her ad qualifies as hate speech.
"There’s nothing hateful about it," she said in an e-mail. "9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. ... The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. ... Pushing back against such hate is not hate." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-jihad-ads-on-cta-buses-cause-controversy-20121114,0,6134745.story
Good for the Coptics. And to Mr. Bar-Tura, while not all Muslims are violent, many Muslims world wide are violent, treat women with disrespect at best and hate homosexuals to the point of killing them in several parts of the world. It's a religion that is backwards and in many places, hateful.
Not all Muslims radicals or killers or condemn those who are, but those people are few and far behind.
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