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Domestic violence is a problem for women (and for men, but that’s for another day too), but to imply that all men are inherently murderous is an incitingly misandric message. There are many ways to raise awareness about social problems, but that was the wrong way and the wrong venue, and for the same reason the Muslim-targeting ad is the wrong way to tackle honour-rooted violence.

Finally, I take issue with Carpay’s statement that removing the ad from the buses will “serve to further society’s ills, instead of addressing problems.” Honour killings are certainly a social ill and a problem, but encouraging divisiveness along religious or racial lines, even in the name of solving a social ill, can lead to another social ill. The Black Lives Matter movement sprang up out of frustration over the social ill of double standards in law enforcement, but its consciousness-raising activism has arguably fomented the secondary social ill of uncontrolled rage on both sides of the issue.

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In lending their “skin” to messaging, tax-funded monopoly public bodies are justified in exercising a little — I won’t say political correctness — prudence in judging what is and what isn’t appropriate for the forced gaze of all its users.

That honour-rooted violence as a systematic problem in Islam-dominated societies is not in dispute. But the immediate issue for the advertising group is the violence, and that alone should have been the focus of the ad. Specifying the religion of those most at risk is not value added, but could have the effect of creating distrust in the very girls the group is seeking to connect with.

Since removal of the words that are the source of the conflict would in no way have changed the essential message of the ad, that compromise, which in my opinion meets the objectives of the messenger and Edmonton Transit, could and should have been the solution. The JCCF, I believe, has more important free-speech fish to fry.

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