Pushing ideas underground

The folks who run the subways have reversed themselves and decided, after some handwringing, that a sex-toy company can indeed hawk its wares on the trains that your toddler and grandmother take to the school and the doctor. The paid advertisements by Unbound will join ads for breast augmentation surgery, and for a service that delivers male erectile dysfunction drugs straight to your home. (That’s called Roman. Thank us later.) All fine by us; we’re not blushing prudes. Color us confused, however, by a policy that lets people promote products that encourage masturbation and copulation, venturing into racy cultural terrain — but almost certainly not ads by, say, a politically active not-for-profit group advocating abstinence.

The same guidelines let the city and state plaster the names and faces of the mayor and governor on train and platform walls — via supposedly apolitical public service announcements — but bar their political challengers, or anyone who might offer a dissonant message, from doing the same.

The double- or triple-standard springs from MTA cowardice. Back in 2012, a group run by rabblerouser Pamela Geller tried to take out ads many people called anti-Muslim. (One read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”)

The agency said no, then got slapped down by a judge, who pointed out that this was a clear-cut case of constitutionally prohibited viewpoint discrimination.

In 2014, Geller was back again, with ads linking ISIS, Hamas and Adolf Hitler.

A court required the bus and subway system to run them — but this time, the agency’s answer was to ban all political ads. Period, end of story.

Legally, the MTA now stands on firmer ground; if nobody gets to have their political say, the MTA can’t be accused of favoring some perspectives over others.

Logically, it has twisted itself into a pretzel that looks even more exotic than those sex toys.