Yesterday afternoon, as I played basketball in the driveway with my son and daughter, an argument arose over who hit the ball out of bounds. My feisty 10-year-old daughter tried to settle the argument by launching the ball at the back of her 12-year-old brother's head. That made him so angry, he took the ball and kicked it into the woods. Game over.
Children have to be taught to settle disputes and express their opinions respectfully. Unfortunately, it's a lesson some adults never seem to have learned.
Take, for example, Terry Jones, the pistol-packing Florida pastor who threatened to burn a Quran on 9/11 last year. Well, a little over a week ago, he... you guessed it. He burned a Quran.
If you recall, Jones didn't go through with it last year because there was such an outcry from nearly everyone -- President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, politicians from both sides of the aisle, celebrities, religious leaders, regular folk and pretty much anyone with a lick of common sense -- that burning a Quran, and offending one and a half billion people, wasn't a good or sane idea.
But it may have been General David Petraeus whose argument was the most convincing -- at least for me. When I spoke with him last year, he boiled it down to a simple matter of life and death. General Petraeus said that there was nothing brave about burning the Quran over here while our soldiers pay the consequences over there -- in Afghanistan, Iraq and now, Libya.
When I interviewed Jones last year, I did my level best to hear him out. But all I could think of was how I would feel, as a Christian, if somebody desecrated my most sacred book, the Bible. His only defense was to say that the Quran wasn't sacred to him.
The leader of the Dove World Outreach Center -- the irony in the name shouldn't be lost on anyone -- began this year's campaign of hate with a new angle. Instead of a simple book burning, Jones decided to first put the holy book of Islam on "trial." He dubbed it, "International Judge the Quran Day." The thinking must have been that if the book were "guilty," then it deserved to get burned.
About 30 people attended, 12 of whom formed the "jury." For good measure, the mock trial featured a prosecuting attorney and defense lawyer. However, in case you have any doubts, it was Jones who was not only the "judge" in this kangaroo court but also the jury and executioner. I think you can guess the verdict. With the outcome certain, it's a wonder Jones had it go on for more than six hours. After soaking a Quran in kerosene for an hour, Jones oversaw the torching of the book.
Fresh off last year's circus as well as last week's circus trial, Jones wants another 15 minutes of fame. So he's now decided to fly to Dearborn, Michigan, on April 22 where he'll protest outside the Islamic Center of America, the country's largest mosque. Jones says he's not protesting against Muslims, but that he's protesting against Islamic law. He says he wants Muslims to "honor, obey and submit to the Constitution of the United States."
Last I checked, I haven't seen any lobbying efforts by Muslim Americans to have the U.S. Constitution overturned.
Ignoring Jones and hoping he disappears into obscurity doesn't seem to work. If anything, he seems to have the survivability of a cockroach. Jones has to be confronted head-on, and that is exactly what an interfaith group of 35 pastors and imams from the Detroit-metro area is doing.
On Monday, the group spoke out against Jones' visit and announced they were planning a prayer vigil in response. Reverend Charles Williams II of the King Solomon Baptist Church said, "As a Christian minister, silence for me would be consent."
As much as I dislike giving Jones any more attention and a 16th minute of fame, silence and inaction in the face of bigotry don't work. Worse, they can unfortunately -- and incorrectly -- signal approval or at the very least acceptance. Jones needs to realize that his words and actions make him the very thing he despises: He is no better than the fringe of Muslims who hate.
Hate masquerading as political protest is still hate, which is why Jones must be repudiated so he realizes that his actions are not only offensive, but also dangerous -- especially to our troops.
We teach our children that they can disagree without being disagreeable. That lesson evolves as we grow older. As adults, we learn that we can protest peacefully and that we can oppose something without being offensive.
Like Terry Jones, my daughter tried to explain to me why she was right to throw the ball at her brother. I explained to her why she was wrong and sent her to her room, much to my son's delight. But that was short-lived because he too was sent packing to his room with what we in the South call a "talking to."
Terry Jones needs to be taught the same lesson, but his is not a game. His actions can have dire consequences for all of us. The lesson he needs to learn is that he has every right to express his opinion about Islam or to disagree with Muslims, but he doesn't have to spit in their faces to do it. He didn't need to desecrate a book that one and a half billion people hold sacred in order to make a point. He shouldn't needlessly put the lives of our armed forces at greater risk.
Terry Jones lives in the South, so he'll understand this idiom as well as anybody: Terry Jones needs a "talking to." Here's how you can talk to Jones.
Follow Rick Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RickSanchezTV
The Virgin Mary sculpted out of Rhino Dung, a Crucifix in a jar of urine, or other publicly funded art like Jesus on the cross covered in Ants seems to qualify as insulting. Where were you then? Was CNN chasing down these artists, Johnny on the spot for a cutting edge interview? Answer: No.
Don't lecture us about Childish Games when you play one.
are you meaning that Terry Jones, in a low-key, small play where he ended up burning a book, is responsible for the many riots, hurt, and death? Or are you saying that, somehow, Terry Jones has some amazing Charisma?
(why are you just blaming Terry Jones? Why not the "media" who reported on his low-key, small play?)
Or are you saying that these people who rioted are, somehow, incompetent? That they are allowed to foist off their worldview/lifestyle (with its own likes, dislikes, sense of the sacred, sense of the blasphemous) on anyone else?
Isn't there more nuance involved here?
I think you would be better served looking toward the certain people who intentionally incited those riots. Who stood to gain from them and so forth.
I wonder, when Palestinian "freedom fighters" held up in that church in Jenin some years back, were tearing out pages of the Bible to use for their toilet paper, how many Muslims in Christian countries around the world were randomly or premeditatedly murdered?
I am reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode where everyone was frightened to death to started up with this kid who had a mind-power to be able to make their life a living hell of terror. If anyone dared talk back on this, and was killed in some heinous way -- all would answer the boy through shaking knees, "It was good you done that -- real good!"
Why I can agree with you that the Muslim group responsible for the killings were wrong, but if we in America are aware of the extreme reactions they may have then it is our responsibility to respect their religious views and leave them alone.
Also as a Christian I do not view the Christian Bible as just a "book," but God's word of how we are to conduct our lives here on earth. The burning of the Bible here in America would certainly stir up a major reaction among Christians as well as other religious groups. There are "extremist Christian groups here in our country. I just wonder what Jones and his group would do if a group decided to do this near his church?
There are many roads to being in God's service. We must respect others religious reliefs.
I gather that these are actions that you find objectionable. Poorly-thought-out actions, exhibiting ignorance and intolerance. Bad things to do...unless Terry Jones and his ilk want to jump in up to their necks in the ignorance and intolerance, and then that is OK. Well, I disagree. bad behavior is bad behavior no matter who exhibits it.
Surely we can agree that anyone who would take the life of another overseas for the actions of a single madman in the backwoods of FL, is a radical. Is the stated goal of the US military not to root out extremeism? Terry Jones' actions, however reprehensible, have succeeded in rooting out thousands of extremeists. Deal with them appropriately, or get the he!! out.
Nope.
"www.google.com/.../ALeqM5jzxnULrNHA48ew5RXLE6cuk4gwvQ"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-02/koran-burning-pastor-his-mad-mock-trial/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR7
Censorship is censorship.
Religion is fear and superstition.
Far too much is based on "The All Powerful Guy in the Sky" who is apparently unable to deliver one clear message to us.
New Zealand is not perfect, but it shares with most developed western nations an understanding that "rights" of citizens exist within accepted social and legal boundaries for the common good. I have no doubt that in time citizens in the USA will simply realise that at times they have been led into error by pedantic efforts to bind interpretations of the constitution into meanings that were never intended by those who wrote it.
In Germany you may not print or display a Swastika. There is no issue of "Freedom of expression" as its meaning and what it represents is well enough understood to know that just like kiddie porn, there may be some who admire it or are titillated by it, but it has no place in a healthy society.
To allow an ignorant and self-centred bigot to personally insult one and a half billion people is not to allow the highest ideals of "freedom of speech" it is just to allow one bigot the opportunity to become world famous and in doing so do more harm to America's interests and reputation on the world stage than a batallion of it's enemies could achieve.
Jones did not "incite" anyone to do anything. He did not call for riots, or for violence, or for murder. The blame for the rioting, violence and murder therefore rests only on those who rioted and murdered.
When something like an image, act of defiance(flag or book burning), or turn of phrase becomes unpopular, the guidelines- laws- can be changed so that one can be prosecuted for un-popular views through their speech.
You don't see a problum with that?
Precedence in Germany, France, UK, NZ, or anywhere else does not make it right.
Sorry if it offends you, but our Constitution seeks to protect UN-POPULAR views from the tyranny of the majority view.
This does not mean our people understand this- just read the comments here.
There will always be a tug-o-war as politicians both Right and Left think there should be exceptions based on patriotism, national security, family values, political correctness, etc. but the fact remains:
our Constitution seeks to protect UN-POPULAR views from the tyranny of the majority view.
Terry Jones and his ilk are not exercising freedom of speech; they are calculatedly exploiting loopholes in American law to offer the most extreme insult available to them to one and a half billion people in the certain knowledge that they cannot attract more than a handful to listen to them otherwise. Insults on this scale can never be adequately put in context to all who hear of it, and the results will have tangible adverse effects well beyond America’s attempts to mitigate or explain them.
The tyranny of government you fear will not be prevented by citizens with guns or allowing extremists to spew hatred without responsibility or limits of any kind, but rather in civilized countries by citizens simply exercising their right to vote and thinking seriously about those they are voting for.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/do-we-have-the-right-to-burn-the-koran/
Never give an inch to religious fanatics. They'll just keep demanding another inch. And another. And another... Until you find yourself in a burqa or burned at the stake.
Well worth a read as well.
It is the behaviour of the rioters, the thugs and the murderers that IS an event.
One, sadly, emblamatic of the odious conduct sanctioned by the burned-book in question.
Thank you for trying to be respectful with your views. The "odious conduct" you mentioned, however, does not exist in most forms of Islam. It's like how the Bible was twisted so long ago to say that slavery was right.