A
federal judge on Wednesday ordered New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation
Authority to let filmmakers run a series of lighthearted advertisements
promoting their film “The Muslims Are Coming!” in the subway.

The
decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan is a defeat for
the MTA, which in April banned political ads from buses and subways after
another judge ordered it to display a controversial ad from an anti-Muslim
group.

McMahon
granted a preliminary injunction requiring the MTA to display Vaguely Qualified
Productions LLC’s ads for its film for 28 days, and said the studio had
“established a clear or substantial likelihood of success on the
merits” of its lawsuit.

Ads
for “The Muslims Are Coming!” contained what filmmakers Negin Farsad
and Dean Obeidallah considered tongue-in-cheek statements such as “The
Ugly Truth About Muslims: Muslims have great frittata recipes” and
“Those Terrorists Are All Nutjobs,” with “nutjobs”
replacing the crossed off “Muslim” to be “more accurate.”

The
film also features commentary from people like Lewis Black, Rachel Maddow,
Russell Simmons and Jon Stewart.

McMahon
said the MTA did not show that the ads were political, or exercise “viewpoint
neutrality” in excluding them.

She
noted that the agency recently ran ads for CNN coverage of a Republican
presidential debate, including quotations from candidates like Ohio Governor
John Kasich.

“An
arbitrary conclusion by some official at the MTA, untethered to any articulated
or articulable standard, that an advertisement including the word ‘Muslims’ is
‘political,’ is utterly unreasonable,” McMahon wrote.

“Indeed,”
she added, “the evidence before the court plainly indicates that VQP’s
silly advertisements were subject to greater scrutiny than other potentially
controversial ads.”

MTA
spokesman Adam Lisberg said the agency is reviewing the decision.

“We’re
very pleased,” said Glenn Katon, a lawyer for Vaguely Qualified, in an
interview. “Just because you have something comedic that refers to
‘Muslims’ or ‘Islam’ doesn’t make the subject matter controversial or
political. The judge got that.”

Vaguely
Qualified sued on June 25, six days after U.S. District Judge John Koeltl let
the MTA under its new policy reject an ad from the American Freedom Defense
Initiative that criticized Hamas and referred to Muslims killing Jews.

Koeltl
had previously ordered the MTA to accept the ad from the anti-Muslim group,
prompting the policy change. The American Freedom Defense Initiative is
appealing Koeltl’s latest ruling.