June 2
US leadership lapse in quran burning
Monday, April 4, 2011 at 8:28AM Many of us in the U.S., regardless of our faith, viewed with despair the Quran-burning pastor’s actions —we knew innocents would likely die. President Barack Obama and others have spoken about the pastor, in the fall when he first threatened the burning and recently after he carried through with it.
There is however a lapse in US leadership regarding appropriate responses to the burning. The lapse creates a dangerous window that should concern all Americans.
The Bill of Rights addresses the issue of faith and free expression in Amendment I:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
President Barack Obama first spoke in September about the pastor with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, former aide to a Democrat in the White House. Obama said, “This country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance…”
Obama rightly said the preacher’s burning of the Quran would be a “destructive act” and “a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.” The leader of the free world also said, “We are a government of laws and we have to abide by those laws…”
Others at the pinnacle of the American body politic weighed in. In September, 2010, after the first threats to burn the holy book were made, Stephanopoulos interviewed Stephen G. Breyer, associate justice in the US Supreme Court.
Stephanopoulos wrote: “But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on ‘GMA’ that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning…’Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,’ Breyer told me. Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”
Wouldn’t it make sense to view those who locally whipped crowds into a frenzy accountable for the deaths?
Obama and Breyer’s words should give us serious pause.
I believe our president missed a golden opportunity. Obama had the international podium and while he did acknowledge laws prevent the government from taking action against the preacher, our president missed a chance to emphasize—even to defend—one of the most valuable rights we as Americans have.
Few countries are as tolerant as the U.S. when it comes to other faiths. When there is an opportunity to contrast religious law and civil law, it would be wise of a leader to do so. Think of the messaging to those in countries where a single religion dominates all rights.
Instead, Obama added an even more troubling assessment about the preacher: “My understanding is that he can be cited for public burning, but that’s the extent of the laws that we have available to us.”
Is our president uncomfortable with the first amendment?
Breyer’s words are extremely troubling. For an associate justice of SCOTUS to suggest diluting a key right for Americans—a right explicitly spelled out with specific limitations ascribed to government—suggests (not for the first time) Breyer does not measure up to the job we have entrusted him with.
If you think Democrats are the only politicos who deserve a sharp rap across the knuckles, consider Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s remarks on a Sunday talk show. Politico disclosed Graham mentioned finding ways of “limiting” some types of speech. Graham said, "I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war."
Free speech is a “great idea”?
Hopefully Graham doesn’t have big feet because then it’d be harder to get them out of his mouth.
Ironically the Taliban mentioned freedom of speech.
Fox News reported: “The Taliban said in a statement emailed to media outlets that the U.S. and other Western countries have wrongly excused the burning [of] a Koran by the pastor of a Florida church on March 20 as freedom of speech and that Afghans ‘cannot accept this un-Islamic act.’"
In the same story Fox said "[H]undreds burned an effigy of President Barack Obama." Will leftwingers call those people racists?
The United Nations of course buys into the Taliban statement. As evidence, I offer you Resolution 7/19 adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2009. The Resolution is titled “Combating Defamation of Religions.” The only religion mentioned specifically—13 times—occurs as “Islam”, “Muslim” or “Arab.”
By the way, leaders in select totalitarian countries routinely call for the destruction of Jews and Christians.
Repeatedly we have seen free speech assailed as a result of faith wars—the building of a mosque at Ground Zero brought protests from American people who realized the mosque would represent exactly what Obama attributed to the pastor—“a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda.” The terrorist group can be expected to sign up many new recruits who will likely see photos and videos of a mosque overlooking an area where thousands of Americans died in a mass murder committed by an international terrorist who wielded his faith as a weapon.
Those who disagreed with the erection of the mosque on that particular site were branded as “extremists” by most big media and Democrats. ‘Extremist’ is a the first word a Democrat applies to any concept s/he disagrees with. Opponents who spoke up about the mosque, however, emphasized the developer’s rights to build it.
Little coverage was given to the troubling report by The Daily Beast of a federal grant sought by the mosque developers. An executive order issued by Obama during the same time period would enable such a grant. Big media took little notice.
In weeks leading up to the Koran burning, a 14 year old child was raped in Bangladesh. The local imam decided she was “guilty of an illicit relationship,” according to an essay at The American Thinker and other media outlets. She was sentenced to 101 lashes under Sharia law. She died and the hospital allegedly attempted to cover up her death by ruling it a suicide. The rapist escaped.
The American Thinker essayist pointed out this is not uncommon as the political class in the U.S. would have us believe. The essayist said a women’s rights group found that in Pakistan, “[T]hree out of four women in prison under its Hudud laws, are rape victims.”
Our president has an international podium, courtesy of a preacher in Florida. Obama is right to condemn the burning of a holy book, but it stands to reason he should also drive home to the world key tenets of Western culture. In the U.S. there is civil law and Congress can make no laws abridging the freedom of speech.
Furthermore we might also call attention to the rape and murder of a female child held hostage by Sharia law exercised by the political class in her home country and others.
What has been overlooked by US leadership in the aftermath of the Quran burning and the rape and murder of a child should trouble all people who value freedom.
Furthermore, someone should ask Breyer exactly who shouted ‘fire’ in the theater. He appears to be blind to the actual perpetrators.
Someone should plug the hole in Graham’s head.
What these leaders are suggesting to the American people is they’d like us to agree to a weakening of our rights to satisfy oppressive regimes in other countries where freedoms are as rare as a diamond in a bag of popcorn.
The Quran burning has served a political purpose in the U.S.—it has distracted from U.S. engagement in a highly questionable act of war against Libya and from the historic levels of debt Washington Democrats created for generations to come.
[Ed. note: The spelling for the Muslim holy book varies. Some use 'Koran' and others use 'Quran.']
Related Articles
Obama comments on Koran burning
The New York Times/blog
At The US Report:
Why did US media allege deaths over Quran incident?
Obama’s decision on Human Rights Council his worst yet
The mosque, the federal grant and the president’s executive order
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/April 3, 2011)
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Kay B. Day, Editor
(1) CNS News analyzes the media map of coverage given to the preacher's Quran burning. As I suspected, the flames were fanned by imams and others in volatile countries. US media (this site included) gave no attention to news releases and other announcements issued by the Florida church.
It would be interesting to ask Asso. Justice Stephen Breyer (SCOTUS) what he'd like done to the political religious class leaders who incited people to kill instead of just having a peaceful protest.
~~~
(2) Chris Carter, at The Victory Institute, aims at the real issue: the killing of innocents. Read Carter's commentary, Foreign aid and Afghan workers murdered in riots...
Carter said, "The problem isn’t burning books – it’s the ideology that inspires people to take to the streets, injuring and killing innocent Afghans (including at least one child) and aid workers in retaliation for the burning of a book."
Reader Comments (2)
Freedom of Speech precedes the establishment of government. Goverment is established to protect it. Governments that fail to do so should be overthrown.
If you agree with the views expressed in this video, perhaps you might forward it to anyone who you think should see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qq4gue6TO0