King County Metro said today it will accept ads for a national campaign run by the Mormon Church. That may seem odd, given that the transit agency made a big to-do last December when it rejected bus ads that criticized Israel and subsequently banned ads on issues of public debate this spring.

The "I'm a Mormon" campaign, which launched in Seattle yesterday, is designed to "make it easy for people to learn about the faith and get to know Mormons personally," according to the church's announcement. Seattle-area spokeswoman Annette Bowen says she doesn't know how much money is designated for billboards on the side of buses, but she says the church seeks to dispel misconceptions that "Mormons are not Christian" and that "we are polygamists." They are Christians and not all of them are polygamists. (Bowen also confirmed the Church's long-held, well-funded, politically bankrolled conviction that "marriage is between a man and a woman.")

Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke says the transit agency received ad proposals from the Mormon Church and decided that "the ads complied with our Transit Advertising Policy." Specifically, that ad policy bans "advertising advocating or expressing an opinion, position or viewpoint on matters of public debate about economic, political, religious, or social issues." Thielke did not respond to a request to comment on how this ad campaign—expressing a religious viewpoint—was exempt from the ban.

So I'll take a stab at the county's logic: The campaign isn't expressing an opinion, exactly, just making it clear that Mormons are everyday Christians who (mostly) have only one husband and one wife.

But I'll also play the devil's advocate. The only reason the church is taking out the ads is because—obviously—people have some pretty negative feelings about Mormons. You might even say they raise "public debate about economic, political, religious, or social issues."

In fact, part of their campaign is aimed specially at the idea of marriage (they embrace one man and one woman, not necessarily one man and a harem of women—and certainly not one man and another man or one woman and another woman). On that point, it's worth noting, the Mormon Church's public policy and religious impositions are matters of enormous public debate. The New York Times said the church "tipped scale in ban on gay marriage" in the controversy over California's Prop 8. The Mormon Church's politics were so controversial, in fact, that people protested the North Stake Center in Seattle. So the Mormon's membership is arguably part and parcel with their politics.

Should their ads be banned?

Fuck no.

Here's my point: King County's bus ad ban is idiotic. The Mormon's ads should run. That's free speech. So should ads criticizing Israel. When we create a convoluted ad policy that allows one agenda-driven group to run its message but prohibit another—based on the parsing of language and an arbitrary decision about what sort of advocacy is publicly debatable and what isn't—we've kicked free speech in lips.