Detroit DOT: Enforcing the Sharia (Islamic law) -- Lawsuit Status

I gave Atlas readers a sneak peek into the recent developments in our lawsuit against the city of Detroit transit system for refusing to run our freedom ads, claiming they were political.

Islam is political? Well, then it rightly loses its "religious freedom" protections and status, and becomes the domain of legally subversive foreign law (the shariah -- Islamic law).

As you may know, Robert Spencer and I and our group the Freedom Defense Initiative are suing the city of Detroit for refusing our religious liberty bus ads -- the same ads that were dropped and then allowed on free speech grounds in Miami, and which ran without legal challenge in New York City. Detroit Transit (SMART), in its argument filed with the court defending its restriction of our freedom of speech (and effective endorsement of the Islamic death penalty for apostates), argued that it routinely disallowed ads in these categories:

1. Political or political campaign advertising. 2. Advertising promoting the sale of alcohol or tobacco. 3. Advertising that is false, misleading, or deceptive. 4. Advertising that is clearly defamatory or likely to hold up to scorn or ridicule any person or group of persons. 5. Advertising that is obscene or pornographic; or in advocacy of imminent lawlessness or unlawful violent action.

So they were saying that our ads offering help to those threatened for leaving Islam were political. They were effectively admitting that Islam was political -- an admission that has immense implications (far beyond, I'm sure, what Detroit imagined). If Islam is political, it ought to be subject to the restrictions and scrutiny to which all political entities in the U.S. are subject. This could open the door to a reevaluation of the unthinking assumption that Islam is simply a religion like Judaism or Christianity, and transform anti-terror efforts that are now hamstrung by the all-too-common idea that all that goes on in mosques is purely "religious."

But in the meantime, we have to win our lawsuit, which is a free speech issue, and as such as far-reaching implications of its own. Our ace lawyers, David Yerushalmi (www.davidyerushalmi.com and www.davidyerushalmilaw.com) and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center have drafted the following legal brief replying to the city of Detroit's claims. They point out the inconsistency of the city's position: "Defendants seek to distance themselves from their own 'equal access' speech policy, which was likely drafted to comport with the First Amendment, so as to retain for themselves the unconstitutional power to censor messages they dislike. Consequently, Defendants’ evidence and arguments demonstrate a fundamental misapprehension of the First Amendment and its limits on the power of government to suppress free expression."

Read it all, carefully: it's a masterpiece of legal argumentation and a ringing defense of the freedom of speech. And one thing is certain, no matter what the outcome of our Detroit suit: the freedom of speech, our foremost bulwark against tyranny, is going to need a lot of defending in the years ahead.

Here's the doc: Download TRO Motion Reply Filed

BTW, the bus ads hit the streets of San Francisco this week.  NYC, Miami, San Fran .....more coming soon, too.