Burning the Koran

By now everyone probably knows about a small church in Florida that plans to burn the Koran on 9/11. I've looked through various posts and comments on this story, and something is missing. Where are the sanctimonious, self-appointed defenders of the Constitution and religious freedom? Why aren't they vigorously defending the obvious first amendment right of free expression involved in this case, and demonizing critics as anti-Christian bigots? Could it be that they care very little about the Constitution or religious freedom, and much more about silencing people they disagree with? Few of the same people so eager to aggressively defend religious freedom have had much to say in supporting the rights of a small group of Christians who merely want to destroy some paper & ink as a symbolic gesture. Now all of the sudden they seem to understand that having the right to do something that is tasteless and offensive to some, and the wisdom of actually doing it are two different things.

Having a public Koran burning is obviously in poor taste, and clearly offensive to Muslims. But what's more offensive are people who respond to symbolic attacks on their religion with threats of death and violence. What's also more offensive is the best-known U.S. general, General Petraeus, actually trying to silence a small American religious group for fear of offending the tender sensibilities of Afghan Muslims.

I'm not a big fan of book burnings of any sort. Religious books should be read in order to point out the absurdities of religion. One of the main reasons I'm an atheist today is because I did so much reading & studying of the Bible. But there's no right not to be offended in the Constitution. It doesn't matter if the offense is to your religion on anything else. Get over it. That goes for Christians whining about offensive art and hostile depictions in popular culture, Muslims whining about pretty much any offense real or imagined, or any other religious type that can't deal with the fact that others just don't respect their beliefs. The very last thing we need is to give credence to the idea that certain topics are off-limits to free expression. That's a far more dangerous thing than burning a couple of books.

As for foreigners who are supposedly going to hate America because a single radical church burns some Korans, I personally welcome their hate. If that's all it takes to inspire hatred of America, if it wasn't this, it would be something else. There's no reason to pander to ignorant, fanatical religious barbarians at the expense of our own free expression. Americans are free to burn the Koran, the Bible, any other so-called holy book, or even our own flag. It's too bad our gutless hypocritical defenders of the Constitution aren't interested when it doesn't involve a politically correct position.

UPDATE

Giving credit where it is due... NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has publicly defended the Florida pastor's right to burn the Koran.

"In a strange way, I'm here to defend his right to do that. I happen to think that it is distasteful. I don't think he would like it if somebody burned a book that in his religion he thinks is holy," the mayor said following a news conference about the progress of the reconstruction at the World Trade Center site.

He emphasized that Jones' planned act is protected by free speech rights. "We can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement."

Bloomberg = not a hypocrite.