Promoting Religion

I'm at work, and as I've mentioned before, I read cnn.com like it's going out of style. They tend to be interesting stories, some evoking strong emotions out of me, as well as making me sit back and think. Thinking is what happened to me today. I was doing my regular reading-- clicking on each of the stories under the "Most Popular" link on the side, when a story came up that ended up taking me by surprise: "Islam subway ads cause stir in New York." The article talks about ads that Islamic group, Islamic Circle of North America, sponsored and now face resistance from people wanting the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject the ads.
They claim that one of the head organizers of the campaign is a suspected terrorist, but the only court appearance he made was to be a character witness and has never been charged with being a co-conspirator. Maybe he is an Islamic extremist, I don't know, but just because he's behind the campaign, does that really mean something promoting (non-extremist) Islam should be banned? I realized that people's outrage over the ads made me discouraged.
I'm assuming that the people in the Islamic Circle of North America are not extremists or terrorists, but want to genuinely promote their religion. Although I will not be converting Islam, I can appreciate what they're trying to do. The ads show a phrase that is often misused in reference to Islam and state in the ad "You deserve to know." The group members want people to think about the words, to explore Islam, and, I'm assuming, convert.
It's not too different than Christianity. The question that kept going through my head while I was reading the article was "If these were Christians wanting to put up an ad, would they get this much resistance?" Christians want to promote their religion, as well as have extremists. They don't go out to other countries and blow them up, but there are people who consider themselves Christians and go and blow up abortion clinics. There are good and bad examples of people of every religion. I don't think the Metropolitan Transit Authority should ban the ads because it's not promoting terrorism or hatred, it is giving people something to think about and explore. I think it is courageous for the group to be so ambitious in choosing the location of their ads (on New York subways). The reason people are resisting the ads is the very reason the ads need to be put up-- people have stereotypes and assumptions about Islam and Muslims, and that's what feeds their resistance to the ads-- because they think Muslims are all terrorists/ extremists. I honestly hope the MTA does not reject the ads, unless there is a darn good reason to, not just because someone's anti-Islam.