Imagine this ad on a NYC bus:
Is a priest groping you?
Quitting Christ?
or this one:
Were you circumcised against your will?
Want out of Judaism?
No way, right? So then why is this one on buses in Miami and San Francisco as well as New York?
Pamela Geller, the reactionary millionaire financing this ad campaign, seems to think she’s the evangelical equivalent of Joan of Arc, protecting Christian America with her “Stop the Islamization of America” campaign ( its website a horror of phobia and paranoia). Coexist with Islam? No way. Geller has donned her financial armor to spearhead opposition to a proposed new mosque near Manhattan’s Ground Zero — a mosque conceived entirely in the spirit of reconciliation by The Cordoba Initiative, named in honor of the ‘Golden Age’ of intellect and faith in medieval Spain that came to a screeching end with the Inquisition.
Do I really have to point out that the use of the phrase “fatwa on your head” is nothing but demagogery? What fatwa? The phrase appeals to Islamophobic stereotypes, nothing more. And do I really need to say that Geller doesn’t give a damn about coerced Muslim women? Like French lawmakers banning the burqa, she’s using fake feminism as a vehicle for Islamophobia.
I’m an agnostic Jew, averse to any form of orthodox monotheism, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, but these bus ads disgust me. Even more disgusting is the fact that public transportation authorities in three of America’s largest cities saw no reason to reject them.
Just how blind can we be when prejudice is staring us in the face?
Filed under: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, US politics | Tagged: ads, buses, Cordoba Initiative, fake feminism, fatwa, Ground Zero, Inquisition, Islamophobia, Leaving Islam, Miami, mosque, New York City, Pamela Geller, San Francisco | 10 Comments »
