The Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office got back to me in response to my e-mail, and confirmed that the ad has indeed been approved:
Dear Mr. Shilling:Please be advised that CBS Outdoor failed to comply with Sections 4.01 and 4.02 of Contract No. TR03-ADV “Advertising Contract,” specifically, CBS did not obtain approval from the Miami-Dade Transit (MDT) Director prior to placing the attached advertisement on 10 MDT buses. Accordingly, said advertisements were pulled pending further review by me.
Upon review and in consultation with the County Attorney’s Office, the advertisement in question, although considered offensive by some, does not fall under the general guidelines that would cause its removal. Please be advised that by agreeing to post these ads, Miami-Dade County is not endorsing the message being presented. Therefore, CBS is authorized to place the attached advertisement on MDT buses.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Harpal S. Kapoor
Director
Miami-Dade Transit …
I have not gotten a copy of the official policy about just what ads are barred (if there even is one).
KevinM says:
If Mr. “Shilling” is a pseudonym, I like it!
April 21, 2010, 3:20 pmChris Travers says:
Now, I wonder if such would have come out differently in Canada….
April 21, 2010, 7:17 pmOwen H. says:
I look forward to the anti-Christian and anti-Jewish ads now allowed.
April 21, 2010, 9:08 pmgeokstr says:
Perhaps when those who leave the Christian and Jewish religions are subjected to death threats for apostasy, or for acting too “Western”, or for refusing to wear a burka, et all?
Let me guess, you’re an atheist with a soft spot in his heart for only one religion – Islam.
April 21, 2010, 9:49 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I thought the relevant advertisement responded to an anti-Jewish or -Christian advertisement, but I could be wrong.
In any event, the future may bring a vigorous crossfire of bus-borne messages concerning the claims, zealotry and crimes of every religion. So long as religion and free speech coexist, this seems unavoidable, as least periodically.
April 21, 2010, 10:17 pmJoe says:
what’s unique about this to me, isn’t that it is making a belief claim, but that it is simply reaching out and attempting to protect people who feel threatened. Her is a girl, Nonie Darwish, that is a former Muslim herself who has been on the receiving end of threats. She’s an infidel, and i suspect she has a fatwa on her head.
It seems markedly different than those transit posters put out recently downplaying the need for God.
April 21, 2010, 11:12 pmBaseballhead says:
If he’s an atheist, he probably doesn’t have a soft spot in his heart for any religion.
April 22, 2010, 2:11 amuh_clem says:
I don’t know about that. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Zoroastrians. (c:
(Seriously, though, I don’t know where this meme of “athiests have a soft spot for Islam” comes from, but it’s a ridiculous strawman argument that makes very little logical sense)
April 22, 2010, 7:18 amInstapundit » Blog Archive » CAIR LOSES A BATTLE in Miami. More here and here…. says:
[...] LOSES A BATTLE in Miami. More here and [...]
April 22, 2010, 8:54 amEconRob says:
This is not the case with the insane left. They back Islamic regimes despite the fact that homosexuality is a protected class except in muslim countries. There is no logic to the left except the insatiable desire to get power. They sell out all the time.
April 22, 2010, 9:43 amBob in FL says:
Owen says:
I look forward to the anti-Christian and anti-Jewish ads now allowed.
You mean like these?
April 22, 2010, 9:55 amhttp://www.atheistbus.org.uk/bus-photos/
Mark in Dayton says:
Dear um-clem:
Let me be perfectly clear: lefty athiests embtrace and admire islam not because lefties love the false prophet of islam, but rather, because lefty’s understand the false prophet of islam to be the harbringer of a totalitarian political ideology that predates even lefty totalitarian ideology by some 1250 years. Islam is a political (psuedo-religious) ideology much stronger than anything the lefty’s have cooked up or have been able to sustain during the past 150 years. The libs and lefties hook up with the muzzies because they sense a weakness in the conservative defense of western civ. They would be mistaken. Conservatives abide by this principle: first the traitors, then the enemy and if you can’t distinuish, then both at the same time.
April 22, 2010, 10:02 amCan't find a good name says:
Actually, the relevant advertisement was responding to a pro-Muslim advertisement, which referred to Islam as the religion of Adam, Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad. It was noticeable that the advertisement under discussion was responding to the pro-Muslim advertisement because it used a similar design.
April 22, 2010, 10:26 amCan't find a good name says:
I don’t mean to be overly critical of people’s use of language, but Darwish is 60 years old, and I think she is entitled to be classified as a “woman” rather than a “girl” by now.
April 22, 2010, 10:29 amHercules says:
Islams dirty little secret: More muslims leave islam to convert to Christianity than there are Christians and hindus who convert to islam.
The stats are out there.
April 22, 2010, 11:54 amManinthemiddle says:
I believe Joe might be referencing Rifqa Bary – a teenager who has been threatened for leaving Islam for Christianity and is facing forced repatriation with her family.
April 22, 2010, 11:57 amJust Dropping By says:
People leaving a difficult-to-practice religion to convert to an easier-to-practice religion is really more of a dog-bites-man story than a “dirty little secret”.
April 22, 2010, 12:02 pmgeokstr says:
Maybe it’s because leftists and atheists (almost but not entirely congruent groups, since I am a conservative atheist) hate Christianity, think the US is the Great Satan and the cause of all evil in the world, and absolutely despise Bush, attitudes shared by Muslims. The enemy of my enemy stuff. They apparently can somehow disregard that Muslims hate atheists and agnostics even more than Christians, and that gays and atheists will be the first ones strung up in the New Caliphate, even before the Christians.
This is probably the same immunity to cognitive dissonance that allows them to believe in the Utopian Religion of Leftism without having their heads explode. They think that the only reason past leftist experiments resulted in 100 million eggs being broken is because those leftists did it wrong, and they of course will do it right this time. Or that even if the proles do happen to take it in the shorts under their leadership, at least they’ll be part of the nomenklatura and be able to keep their boats and summer dachaus on the Black Sea, etc.
I suspect Joe has simply got his names confused. It is Rifqa Bary who is the relevant example, an Ohio teenager who converted to Christianity and believes her family will kill her:
Sharia Law: Rifqa Bary Fights to Stay in US
Of course, there’s also the two teenage sisters in Texas stabbed to death by their father, and the teenage girl in AZ run over multiple times with an SUV by her father until she was dead, all for the crime of not being Islamic enough, or the forced marriages of preteen girls, or the…ad sickeningly nauseum. And that’s just in this country; it’s much worse in any country with any significant minority of Muslims.
April 22, 2010, 12:16 pmgeokstr says:
I think “nearly impossible to stomach” or “horrifically brutal” might be better descriptors for Islam than “difficult-to-practice”. I find it amazing that a religion/ideology that enslaves women, forces preteen girls to marry (sometimes even preteen Christian girls kidnapped and forced to “convert” first), kills gays and apostates, stones adulterers, cuts off limbs, slowly saws off heads of reporters, considers unbelievers pigs and monkeys, brainwashes little children with hatred of non-Muslims from Kindergarten and up, believes that blowing themselves up is heroic, even more so when you can take lots of children and women with you, could be referred to as merely “difficult to practice”.
Given that it is a crime punishable by death to leave Islam, I think it is hardly a “dog bites man” story when someone gets up the courage to do so. Islam fits every definition of a cult, and being condemned to death for leaving is one of the most telling signs.
And when you get right down to it, atheism is the easiest religion to practice ever invented. Make up all your own rules, ethics, and morals, and with no one to answer to as long as you can legally get away with it,
April 22, 2010, 12:31 pmArthur Kirkland says:
That’s how churches work, too . . . plus, they add the hypocrisy of failing to heed the standards they establish and claim to support. They also stack the “legally” part by exploiting many exemptions from customary legal standards.
April 22, 2010, 3:00 pmChris Travers says:
People relate to others assuming others are like themselves. Your post tells me much more about you than it does about any political group in this country.
April 22, 2010, 5:41 pmChris Travers says:
And the hardest religion in the world to practice is probably Hellenismos. If being in a hard-to-practice religion is a virtue, we should all convert and start worshipping the Olympians….
April 22, 2010, 5:42 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, as much as I personally dislike Islam (mostly because I see it as dangerous to place too much overlap between order of the state and religious observance), and in particular the developments of Salafist Islam (which is sort of an Islamic Anarchy movement), this whole thing really shouldn’t be about Islam but rather freedom of speech.
I would notice an important lesson to draw here. When we look at the potrayals of Islam in this country in total, in aggregate they are substantially more hostile to Islam than the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Yet we haven’t had folks travelling around the Middle East claiming how poorly Muslims are treated here with regard to equal protection under the law (IMO, a defensible perception regarding Danish law). Consequently, the riots regarding these really need to be seen as a lesson as to why free speech laws protect everyone, and why free speech anarchy is a good thing.
April 22, 2010, 5:51 pmAmillennialist says:
So, you approve of Muhammad’s “sacralized” genocide, pedophilia, rape, mutilation, torture, slavery, religious and gender apartheid, wife-beating, polygyny, theft, extortion, deceit, and blasphemy? Why would you want to keep any Muslim enslaved under such a system? Why would you argue against helping your fellow human beings flee to freedom?
Here’s a little of why freedom of speech, religion, and conscience need to be defended against Islam:
“the Messenger of Allah . . . would say: ‘Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. . . . When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. . . . Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them . . .’” (Muslim Book 19, Number 4294).
“fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war) . . . ” (Qur’an 9:5).
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter . . . ” (Qur’an 5:33).
[Ibn Kathir says of this verse: "'Wage war' mentioned here means, oppose and contradict, and it includes disbelief, blocking roads and spreading fear in the fairways. Mischief in the land refers to various types of evil." So, Muhammad requires execution, crucifixion, or cutting off hands and feet from opposite sides for "disbelief."]
“Allah’s Apostle said: ‘I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle . . . ‘” (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24).
“It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. Ye desire the lure of this world and Allah desireth (for you) the Hereafter, and Allah is Mighty, Wise” (Qur’an 8:67).
“Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror’” (Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220).
You really ought to abandon your pro-Islam/anti-Christian bias and defend what is good.
April 24, 2010, 3:42 pmAmillennialist says:
Rifqa Bary: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_prosecution_of_rifqa_bary.html
April 24, 2010, 4:22 pmAmillennialist says:
That’s like saying World War II shouldn’t have been about Hitler and Nazism, but about respecting borders. That’s great, but whom do you shoot?
(In other words, how do you defend yourself against an enemy you’re either too ignorant or too cowardly to name?)
April 24, 2010, 4:29 pm1040 says:
What a Godwinesque way to miss the entire point!
April 24, 2010, 7:19 pmneurodoc says:
Right, “we haven’t had folks travelling around the Middle East claiming how poorly Muslims are treated here with regard to equal protection under the law,” unlike the Danes who had those imams flying about in an effort to incite the Muslim world against that country in which they lived. If Muslims did not enjoy equal protection under the law here, as they do, one can only wonder how much more/less love we might feel from the greater Muslim world than we have felt for the past number of years. (Do we start counting all the expressions of that love from the time Sayyid Qutb started putting together the Muslim Brotherhood, jump ahead to Khomeni and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the rise of Al Qaeda, or from some other point?) The US must be grateful for the forgiveness the Muslim world has shown us for all of our sins against them as Muslims, e.g, we threw our support to Serbia first in Bosnia, then later in Kosovo; we pushed Egypt and Jordan to peace with Israel rather than encouraging them to finish Israel off no matter what it took to do; we didn’t stay around to restore Somalia to the greatness it had known; we didn’t do enough to rid Afghanistan of its Russian invaders and give the country back to its people, including the very Islamic Taliban; we have been so stinting with aid to Muslim countries, especially Pakistan and Egypt; etc. Yes, let us be grateful that the Islamic world is so forgiving, tolerant, peaceful, etc., because it’s frightening to think how things would be if it were otherwise.
April 25, 2010, 8:12 pmneurodoc says:
Leaving Hitler, Nazis, Godwin, and South Africa out of this, what exactly do you see as the point?
April 25, 2010, 8:16 pmAmillennialist says:
“Godwinesque”? In pointing out the suicidal foolishness of avoiding confronting Islam directly, I made what’s called an “analogy.” Trying to dismiss its relevance demonstrates your ignorance, not your wit, and it proves my point.
The ties between Islam and Nazism are several and profound:
First, both Hitler and Muhammad shared a deep and abiding passion for killing Jews, though Adolf’s six million Muhammad would call only “a start.”
Second, both sought to subjugate the world. (Muhammad’s been considerably more successful.)
Third, recognizing their natural fit, Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem worked together to exterminate Jews as efficiently as possible, with al-Husseini not only collaborating on the concentration camps and encouraging the Nazis staffing them to do their work diligently, but also recruiting his coreligionists to serve in the Nazi’s Bosnian Muslim SS divisions.
Here’s a bit on Hitler to al-Husseini:
Here’s a morsel on al-Husseini to his Coreligionists of Peace:
And here’s the genocidal pedophile Muhammad to the world and to his everlasting shame and condemnation:
Fourth, Hitler lamented Germany’s being a Christian nation rather than an Islamic one.
Fifth, Hitler wrote of his “struggle,” Mein Kampf. Muhammad commanded his followers to wage jihad against the world “until all religion is for Allah.” “Jihad” means “struggle.”
Sixth, just as Chamberlain and other ignorant cowards sought to appease a monster who’d made his intentions clear — in writing — so today we have a multitude of Chamberlains running around attempting to silence those telling the truth about jihad and shari’a through prosecutorial persecution (Geert Wilders), violence and the threat of violence (Theo Van Gogh, the Muhammad cartoons, and yes, South Park), and name-calling (“Islamophobe,” “racist,” and “Godwin”).
There’s one aspect in which Muhammad and Hitler differed dramatically: At least Hitler didn’t claim “the devil made me do it.”
So, no. The reference to Nazism was not gratuitous.
April 26, 2010, 2:13 am