J. Neil Schulman
@ Agorist.com
Stop the Quran Burning — Compost It!
But let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Christians have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to burn a Quran on private property in Florida, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.
OK, that’s not what President Obama actually said. The President was actually talking about Americans being tolerant of building a Muslim religious center and mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, to be named “Cordoba” after an historic Muslim defeat of Christians.
I’m sensing a double standard. Christians need to be tolerant of Muslims practicing their religion — but Muslims can stick their fingers in the eyes of Christians and Christians are just supposed to offer the other eye?
The proposed “International Burn a Koran Day” planned by Pastor Terry Jones (no relation to the Monty Python) planned for September 11, 2010, by Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville (no relation to the Gaines who founded Mad Magazine) Florida has provoked a firestorm of protest — literally. An Associated Press news story tells us that “Hundreds of angry Afghans burned an American flag and chanted ‘Death to the Christians’ to protest the planned burning of Islam’s holiest text.”
Yep. When I think of demonstrations in support of religious tolerance, burning an American flag and shouting “Death to the Christians!” was the picture I had in mind.
Meanwhile, the Vatican, President Obama, General Petraeus, and Sarah Palin have all condemned the proposed Quran burning. Now there’s a hands-across-the-water that only Pastor Jones could have given us.
Of course the Pastor’s religious freedom is sort of shaky. Four FBI agents visited his church today. Now that’s not at all chilling of the First Amendment, is it?
Fine, fine, fine.
It strikes me that if Iran can bend Sharia law by proposing to hang an adulteress instead of stoning her to death, Pastor Jones should likewise show his Christian tolerance — and his patriotism — by composting the Quran instead of burning it.
Hey, Ellen Page — got a problem with that?
This article is Copyright © 2010 The J. Neil Schulman Living Trust. All rights reserved.
My comic thriller Lady Magdalene’s — a movie I wrote, produced, directed, and acted in it — is now available for sale or rental on Amazon.com Video On Demand. If you like the way I think, I think you’ll like this movie. Check it out!
September 9, 2010 - 11:23 pm
The burning of a Koran is not “the practice of Christianity.” At least not according to the overwhelming majority of Christian leaders, who’ve denounced the Koran burning.
Yes, Terry Jones’s right to engage in hate speech should be protected, as it is, by the Constitution. But it’s still hate speech.
Jones’s action is analogous to the Nazis who marched through Skokie, rather than to “the practice of Christianity.” Something to be protected, but not something to be celebrated.
September 11, 2010 - 6:44 pm
Is the burning of an American flag and shouting “Death to the Christians!” the practice of Islam?
Is stoning a woman for adultery the practice of Islam?
You’re the Hollywood Investigator, Tom. Inquiring minds want to know.
September 12, 2010 - 9:09 am
Is the burning of an American flag and shouting “Death to the Christians!” the practice of Islam?
I’ve never read the Koran, but I assume it makes no mention of flag burning.
I think the Koran says Jews and Christians are second class to Muslims, but as “people of the book,” they have certain rights. However, you can find old Jewish and Christian texts that say negative things about non-believers.
Is stoning a woman for adultery the practice of Islam?
I think that medieval Islam, like ancient Judaism, did advocate stoning of adulterers.
Modern Judaism, like modern Christianity, has grown up. Much of Islam too has grown up. Only a minority of Muslims engage in such medieval practices.
Certainly American Muslims don’t. You can find a rare American lunatic who’ll use religion to justify violence, but lunatics come in every religion and no religion.
I’m amazed that so many Americans are projecting collective guilt onto our fellow Americans who happen to be Muslim. Muslim Americans had nothing to do with 9/11.
Seeing the protests against the “ground zero mosque,” I can see how Japanese Americans were demonized after Pearl Harbor. War makes people irrational.
September 12, 2010 - 1:39 pm
Precisely. Christians burning a Koran and Muslims burning an American flag are not religious practices. They’re both political in nature.
Well, Islam hasn’t grown up on this point. A woman in Iran has within the past few weeks faced stoning on a charge of adultery.
What Americans are worried about is allowing fanatical Muslims to portray themselves as moderates, so they can import extremism. It was the same concern expressed early in the 20th century about the loyalty of ethnic groups the U.S. was at war with — particularly Germans during WWI and Japanese, Germans, and Italians during WW2.
A lot of these fears are, as you point out, ungrounded. For the most part hyphenates were loyal.
But it’s worth noting that al-Qaeda is having success in recruiting Americans for domestic terror ops – which, ironically enough, is precisely what you and I were playing as characters in Lady Magdalene’s.