SHELTERING STRAPHANGERS FROM ... CONTROVERSY?

Where other transit agencies around the nation back off, Boston doggedly
censors subway ads - and gets sued.

Once again, the city that spawned the expression "banned in Boston" is
facing charges of government censorship.

This time, it's not controversial plays or books being axed, but certain
advertisements submitted to the city's subways and buses - involving the
relative criminality of marijuana use and the "Christianliness" of Santa Claus.

Despite repeated losses over the years to advertisers suing on free-speech
grounds, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) finds itself
facing two fresh legal challenges - both claiming that the public agency is
overstepping its authority to regulate ads.

Disputes over the use of public advertising space - and whether free speech
protections extend to advertisers - are common. But the frequency with
which the MBTA gets tangled in these disputes - five times in the past 30
years - is unusual, especially given the Massachussetts liberal reputation.

"You read the transit free-speech cases, and it's like a travel directory
of the United States," says Harvey Schwartz, the attorney representing both
of the current plaintiffs. "But you don't see any repeat cases.... Boston
is stubborn."

Indeed, many Bostonians say there's a more profound cultural reality at
play: A deep-seeded Puritan morality and the strong political influence of
the Roman Catholic Church that form a conservative alterego to the region's
otherwise liberal public face.

One of the two new cases is a federal lawsuit - tried earlier this month
and awaiting the judge's verdict - that was brought by a drug-policy reform
group, Change the Climate. The Massachusetts group encourages debate about
the fairness of marijuana laws. The MBTA argues that the group's ads
tacitly encourage illegal activity.

ONE of the group's three ads submitted to the MBTA depicted a teenage girl,
with the text: "Smoking pot is not cool, but we're not stupid ya know.
Marijuana is NOT cocaine or heroin. Tell us the truth...."

In rejecting the ads, the MBTA says it was simply acting within its
guidelines that prohibit ads that contain violent criminal content, are
harmful to children, or denigrate groups based on gender, race, ethnicity,
religion, or political affiliation.

"We are an agency that works with the public," says MBTA spokeswoman Lydia
Rivera. "We owe the community a transit that they shouldn't feel
uncomfortable with.... Other transits might agree [with us], but bend a
little. And we don't. We refuse."

Indeed, Washington, D.C., for example, already ran similar ads from Change
the Climate. Ever since its transit agency tried unsuccessfully in 1984 to
ban an ad that ridiculed Ronald Reagan as president of the "jellybean
republic," about the only major guideline it's had is that ads can't carry
inaccurate information, says Lisa Farbstein, Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority spokeswoman.

Legally, a public agency like the MBTA is allowed to create certain rules -
like banning pornography and profanity, for instance - so long as they are
enforced equally, across political views. In the case of Change the
Climate, the MBTA says the ads fall into the "harmful to children" category
by tacitly encouraging illegal activity.

In the case of the Church with the Good News - the plaintiff in the second
new lawsuit - the MBTA claimed the church's ad violated its prohibition
against denigrating a group based on religion. The church's ad promoted its
website which, the MBTA says, declares other religions false.

But the court cases contend that the agency guidelines are too vague. In
the last similar legal battle, a suit brought in 1994 by the AIDS Action
Committee of Massachusetts, a federal court handed down an opinion saying
the MBTA used a policy so vague as to be incomprehensible, says Sarah
Wunsch, an attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts.

"You'd think they'd learn," says Ms. Wunsch, noting that in court earlier
this month, the MBTA was still arguing that "Boston is different: 'We have
standards here.' "

Indeed, those standards are the root of a recurring trend. From its Puritan
roots to the notorious Watch and Ward Society in the 1920s which outlawed,
among other things, Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and Walt
Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Boston has a very long history of enforcing
morality, says Stephen Nonack, head of reader services at the Boston
Athenaeum, an independent library that specializes in local history. "The
term 'banned in Boston' has got a familiar ring all over the country," he adds.