Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
On March 9, the New York Times ran a viciously anti-Catholic ad placed by the radical atheist group, Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF); to read it, and our rejoinder to it, click here. In response, anti-Islamist activist Pamela Geller decided to submit an ad to the Times that played off the FFRF ad by changing the wording to make it look like an attack on Islam. For example, she asked Muslims to quit their religion because they oppress so many people.
Neil Munro of The Daily Caller has a splendid article on Geller’s courageous gambit today [click here to read it]. She was turned down by the Times. It was rejected, they said, because “the fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.”
The Times’ rationale for denying Geller’s ad is sound: as a veteran, I am opposed to unnecessarily putting our armed forces in harm’s way. But I wonder why it takes fear to impel the New York Times not to run bigoted ads. Wouldn’t ethics suffice? It certainly wasn’t enough when they decided to run the FFRF ad assaulting Catholic sensibilities.
It would be wrong to merely pick on the Times. We need to have a national discussion on the way the elite media extend a privileged position to some sectors of our society, while failing to extend the same protections to other sectors.
Contact NYT senior VP of corporate communications: robert.christie@nytimes.com
