The ACLU Is Suing The DC Metro On Behalf Of Milo Yiannopoulos

I stumbled across this on Instagram this morning (Milo was banned from Twitter aaaages ago) and BOY was I surprised…

The ACLU will be representing me against the Washington DC Metro after the latter caved to pressure from progressive activists and tore down ads for my book, DANGEROUS. I’m glad that the ACLU has decided to stop aiding the spread of sharia law and their usual wrongheaded social-justice crusades to tackle a real civil rights issue. I’m joined in this lawsuit by fellow plaintiffs including pharmaceutical villains and vitamin-deficient vegans, but I’m no stranger to odd bedfellows. Free speech isn’t about only supporting speech you agree with, it is about supporting all speech — especially the words of your enemies. Strong opponents keep us honest. The ACLU has backed plenty of bad causes in the past, but they are also sometimes in the right, such as today. The citizens of Washington D.C. have to worry about living in a corrupt swamp brimming with violent crime. They deserve to be protected from that — not from free speech in their public transportation system.

A post shared by MILO (@milo.yiannopoulos) on Aug 9, 2017 at 8:59am PDT

The caption reads:

The ACLU will be representing me against the Washington DC Metro after the latter caved to pressure from progressive activists and tore down ads for my book, DANGEROUS.

 

I’m glad that the ACLU has decided to stop aiding the spread of sharia law and their usual wrongheaded social-justice crusades to tackle a real civil rights issue. I’m joined in this lawsuit by fellow plaintiffs including pharmaceutical villains and vitamin-deficient vegans, but I’m no stranger to odd bedfellows. Free speech isn’t about only supporting speech you agree with, it is about supporting all speech — especially the words of your enemies. Strong opponents keep us honest.

 

The ACLU has backed plenty of bad causes in the past, but they are also sometimes in the right, such as today.

The citizens of Washington D.C. have to worry about living in a corrupt swamp brimming with violent crime. They deserve to be protected from that — not from free speech in their public transportation system.

Holy smokes. Color me shocked.

I went over to the ACLU’s Facebook page and yup, there it was. They’re really doing this.

The lawsuit will be on behalf of the ACLU, PETA, Milo, and Carafem – an abortion provider…. strange bedfellows indeed.

IJR reports:

“WMATA intends to vigorously defend its commercial advertising guidelines, which are reasonable and view-point neutral,” Sherri Ly, Manager of Media Relations for WMATA, wrote in an email to Independent Journal Review.

 

The advertisements featured the First Amendment in English, Spanish, and Arabic, an abortion medication pill, Yiannopoulos’s new book, “Dangerous,” and PETA’s “Go Vegan” campaign. The rejected ads can be viewed here.

 

“The First Amendment protects everybody and if it doesn’t protect you, then sooner or later it’s not going to protect me either,” Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU-DC and lead counsel in the case told IJR, noting the broad range of ideologies represented in the case.

 

Metro’s advertising guidelines were amended in 2015 after controversial anti-Muslim advertisements purchased by Pamela Geller of American Freedom Defense Initiative, caused backlash from riders.

 

“There is really no end to the censorship that will go on under these kinds of vague and arbitrary rules,” Spitzer told IJR. “Every ad has a viewpoint and Metro is discriminating in favor of some and against others that’s not something the First Amendment should allow.”

 

The ads promoting Yiannopoulos’s book featuring his face and the caption “the most hated man on the internet,” were originally approved by D.C. Metro, but were later removed after complaints from customers.

 

“We didn’t have anything to say about issues or policy, unless you consider my face to be a political statement. So I have a simple question for the D.C. Metro. Which advertisements do not break those policies? Is my face a hate crime?” Yiannopoulos wrote in an email to the Washingtonian.

I often have HUGE issues with the ACLU, but I have to give them credit for this. Whether or not you support Milo is IRRELEVANT. Speech you agree with is easy to “defend,” isn’t it?

They’re already facing huge backlash from their supporters who don’t seem to understand that the First Amendment is FOR EVERYONE.

Check out this response:

Man, do I hope they don’t back down.

This is the ACLU’s chance to prove they actually sort of kind of give a crap about civil liberties, and not just pushing a leftist agenda.

Can’t wait to see how this all pans out…