The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority must accept and run advertisements showing a praying George Washington, U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled Tuesday.
Metro will have to post the ads from WallBuilder Presentations, an Aledo, Texas, nonprofit group with a stated mission of educating “the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country.”
The ads showed 19th-century painter Henry Brueckner’s depiction of Washington kneeling in prayer, with a large headline, “Christian?”
Text at the bottom and a QR Code direct the audience to a website “to find out about the faith of our founders.”
WMATA in 2023 rejected the ads — and versions edited to show only the QR code and WallBuilder’s website address — because the posters were “intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying public opinions” and would “promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief,” in violation of the agency’s advertising guidelines.
But attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, its D.C. chapter, and First Liberty Institute as well as Steptoe LLP said Metro accepted and displayed ads for the satirical musical, “The Book of Mormon” and political ads that promoted term limits for Supreme Court justices.
Judge Howell, a 2010 Obama appointee to the D.C. district court, granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ad guidelines as the case is litigated on the merits.
She said Metro hasn’t established any regulations about implementing its guidelines, nor published “guidance about what speech is forbidden” under its rules.
She noted that when WallBuilders sought an explanation of the ad rejection, “WMATA did not respond.”
The jurist said the standard was inconsistently applied, called its wording “constitutionally suspect,” and ordered the agency to accept the ads while the case is ongoing.
Arthur Spitzer, the ACLU-D.C.’s senior counsel, said the group is “pleased that this ruling moves us one step closer to ending WMATA’s arbitrary censorship of speech about public issues.”
“In a democracy, the government has no right to pick and choose which viewpoints are acceptable. This case is about expanding everyone’s freedom to express their views without unreasonable government interference,” he said.
Jeremy Dys, senior counsel at First Liberty, noted all the numerous politics-related ads that the Metro system apparently didn’t think had “varying public opinions.”
“Rejecting a faith-based advertising banner by labeling it an ‘issue ad,’ while accepting other ads such as those promoting a ‘Social Justice School,’ ‘Earth Day,’ and the highly controversial idea of terms limits for Supreme Court justices, is clearly hypocritical, discriminatory, and illegal,” he said.
First Liberty said the case would continue because the plaintiffs are also asking the court to declare the WMATA ad guidelines unconstitutional and order Metro to accept and run “issue ads” that would violate those guidelines.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.