Thursday, September 9, 2010

Quran burning threat stopped

The leader of a tiny church in Gainsville Fl backed off his threat to burn the Quran, saying he gave up the plan in exchange for a deal to move a planned Islamic center and mosque away from New York's ground zero. The imam planning the center, however, quickly denied any such deal.

Apparently an agreement was made for Rev. Terry Jones to fly to NYC to meet with the imam that is planning on building the mosque on the grounds once home to the Twin Towers.

This event of burning the Quran has created a hornets nest of controversy across the globe. Request from the White House to local leaders to back down on the scheduled event were ignored. Jones, the pastor of a Florida Pentecostal church of 50 members, has said that he believes the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

The confusion on this matter is that his intention of burning was because of his thinking of the Quran being bad, yet he was open to a deal to move the mosque to a different location. My take on this is that he had no intention do burn the Quran and was focused on gaining some free publicity.

One thing he did prove is that there is a double standard in America. If you are a non American, you are protected under the freedom of religion, but if you are an American, you are not protected under freedom of speech.