A series of anti-Islam ads appeared on public transit in New York and San Francisco last month, and continue to draw criticism for stoking Islamaphobia. On Thursday, a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and community activists protested in White Plains, New York, calling for Metro-North to denounce the ads and donate the revenue to human rights groups.

Pamela Geller’s anti-Muslim American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) is behind the ads. In August, San Francisco’s Muni system agreed to donate ad revenue to the Human Rights Commission. The N.Y. protesters called on Metro-North in Westchester Country to do the same.

Some of the Westchester ads have come down, though only because they “ran their course.” These ads read, “It’s not Islamophobia, it’s Islamorealism.” Another of Geller’s ads is based on an Ayn Rand quote meant to imply that Muslims are “savages.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, of which Metro-North is incorporated, has actually already denounced the ads. The MTA had previously rejected them, claiming they, as the New York Times reported, “violated its prohibition on ads that demeaned individuals or groups on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and five other specific categories.” However, a federal judge ruled that MTA’s decision violated AFDI’s first amendment rights.

Rev. Dr. Gawain de Leeuw, a religious leader who has denounced the ads, said, “I know that they are opportunists who seek to preying on the fears and worries of hard-working Americans.” During Ramadan last month, American Muslims faced a string of attacks at schools, homes, and mosques.

In an interview with Fox News this afternoon, Mitt Romney shot back at critics who complained that he didn’t mention Afghanistan or praise U.S. troops in his convention speech last week, arguing that he focused on issues that are “important.”

Fox News’s Brett Baier told Romney that “several speakers” at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this week criticized the GOP presidential nominee for the omissions (actually it was right-wing foreign policy leader Bill Kristol who started the attacks) and asked him if he had any regrets. “I only regret you’re repeating it day in and day out,” Romney said, adding that his speech focused on things that are important:

BAIER: To hear several speakers in Charlotte … they were essentially saying that you don’t care about the U.S. military because you didn’t mention U.S. troops and the war in Afghanistan in your nomination acceptance speech. … Do you regret opening up this line of attack, now a recurring attack, by leaving out that issue in the speech.

ROMNEY: I only regret you’re repeating it day in and day out. When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important and I described in my speech, my commitment to a strong military unlike the president’s decision to cut our military. And I didn’t use the word troops, I used the word military. I think they refer to the same thing.

Watch the clip:

The war in Afghanistan and the sacrifices made by U.S. troops weren’t important enough for Romney to talk about them in his speech? His speech did mention the military, but only to say that he wants to “preserve” a strong military (incidentally so does Obama). But Kristol’s criticism was not that Romney didn’t mention the military but that he did not pay tribute to U.S. troops who fought or are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what is Romney’s “commitment to a strong military”? He plans to increase military spending by $2.1 trillion over the next ten years (which the military does not need) without offering a plan to pay for it. That doesn’t sound too much like a strong commitment to the economy.