Bus ads intended to condemn Islam and Muslims have surfaced in San Francisco prompting spirited reactions from city officials and others in the community.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) is behind the ads that feature images of and quotes from Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. (Yahoo!News, March 13, 2012, by Claudine Zap)
San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius (March 14, 2013) reports that city officials condemned the ads as “Islamophobic” but given the First Amendment could do little to stop running the ads on city buses. Nevius quoted law professor Evan Lee that the only way to stop the ads would be “if the ads were so incendiary that they were going to incite riots, that people are going to die.”
The AFDI ad campaign mounted in different cities across the nation is a response to a campaign in Chicago by the Council of American-Islamic Relations promoting a broader definition of jihad, an Islamic term for struggle, writes columnist Debra J. Saunders. (San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 2013) While agreeing that the AFDI ads are offensive, Saunders criticizes Mayor Ed Lee for his sanctimonious response, “Lee and company never pass up a chance to use tax dollars to lecture on what they see as wrong thinking on the right.” -db