Ad approvals are handled on a case-by-case basis by an actual human being, trained in policy and guidelines.
However, as you can imagine, in cases such as yours there is a certain amount of judgement involved.
Should you ever feel that an error in judgement has been made, feel free to reply to the disapproval email and request another review and/or request more information about what, specifically, were the issues.
(BTW, since you are new to the forum, I should probably introduce myself as an AdWords employee, posting here for the past 10 months with the kind permission of Brett_Tabke and the Forum 81 moderators.)
AWA