I actually think this one is very straightforward. A very easy and black-and-white issue. Saturday's Koran Burning event in Gainesville, Florida -- to be held by pastor Terry Jones and his small Dove World Outreach church -- is pure ugliness. Obama's AG, Eric Holder, today described the event as "idiotic and dangerous." Likely for the first time ever, I agree with Holder on something (it's the "broken watch is right twice a day" syndrome). But don't you feel the "BUT" coming on???Well here it is: I think Jones and his "flock" have every right under my beloved First Amendment to burn Korans as a form of political speech (their stated intention is to protest radical Islam). To me, there's very little if any distinction between burning Korans and burning American flags, the latter of which the U.S. Supreme Court has previously found to be "symbolic speech" protected by the First Amendment.
Now, I do also believe that such acts as burning Korans and flags represent perhaps the lowest form of political speech of which I can imagine. The mentality behind such acts is basically this: I disagree with what a symbolic inanimate object represents to some or many people, and so I'm going to violently attack the object and destroy it rather than try to address the substance of that with which I disagree. Put another way, this is the political speech of the ignorant, unenlightened moron. (If the shoes fits, "pastor" Jones).
But the First Amendment (and correctly so, obviously) draws no distinctions between dumb and intelligent speech, nor between moronic and more-intelligent speakers. After all, one man's viewpoint is often to another man a perverted idea. And it's precisely that unfettered and free marketplace of ideas that our First Amendment is designed to protect. So pastor Jones gets to hold his little party Saturday, and if the cops try to shut it down, they will be violating the church members' Constitutional rights -- rights that I would gladly give my life to preserve and protect, if even for the benefit of mindless Koran or American flag burners.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-koran-burning-20100908,0,230085.story
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