In America, the burning of a Bible is not punishable by death.
Indeed, if it is your copy of the book, you have the right to do so as a matter of symbolic free speech.
Recently, we have seen President Obama and those under him repeatedly and abjectly apologize because American troops in Afghanistan inadvertently burned one or more copies of the Quran.
In a letter sent to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama expressed his administration's "regret and apologies over the incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled" in Afghanistan.
Then, Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs, told the American Muslim community "I come here today to apologize on behalf of the Department of Defense for the incident that took place in Afghanistan this week ... the burnings were done 'unknowingly and improperly.'"
Then, not to be outdone, Gen. John R. Allen, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Commander wrote, "To the noble people of Afghanistan --
"I have ordered an investigation into a report I received ... that ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. ...
"We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you -- I promise you -- this was NOT intentional in any way. I offer my sincere apologies... to the president of Afghanistan, ... and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan...."
In the meantime, the world has seen a week of rioting in Afghanistan. More than 30 people have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded. The AP reports "Protesters [note: not "rioters, "murders,"or "terrorists"] angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead." All this by the "noble people of Afghanstan!"
So copies of the Quran, rather than the bible, have been burned. Does that justfy riots that culminate in over 30 murders? Untold woundings? Burning out of towns? I use the word "murders" because when you throw a grenade into a crowd, or intentionally shoot somebody during a riot, or in the back of the head, that is what it is.
If American troops had burned a like number of Bibles, would Christians or Jews have taken to the streets, killed their neighbors and wrecked everything in site? Maybe in 350 A. D. Maybe in the middle ages.
There is a simple problem here. If the burning of a copy of the Quran justifies the murder of one human being, then a principle has been established. If it justifies one murder, then why not two -- or even a million? And if so, are we going to see like conduct from America's Muslim population in the streets of America when the next idiot or malevolent burns a copy of the Quran?
I can understand the president apologizing for our troops doing something insensitive. But why doesn't the president condemn the riots, the murders, the woundings and the chaos going on in Afghanistan? Or are we here in America willing to accept the premise that those of the Muslim faith are free to do anything -- including murder -- any time they perceive their religion to have been slighted?
Newt Gingrich, has said, "There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama's attention in a negative way and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States, period."
I feel the same way. I don't think you apologize to murders, to arsonists, to looters or to people who behave like barbarians.
Citizen A may believe that the Bible is God's word, but that doesn't make it so. Citizen B may believe that the the Quran is God's word, but that doesn't make it so.
And if B is justified in killing A because A doesn't believe God wrote the Quran, I see no reason why A is not justified in killing B if B doesn't believe that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God.
For two centuries people have come to America to escape such intolerance.
In our country "freedom of religious belief" is an absolute right. You have an absolute right to believe that the Quran is the word of God, and your neighbor has an absolute right to believe that God inspired the men who wrote the Bible. But there are necessarily limits to the "free exercise of religion."
Another of our neighbors may have an absolute right to believe that God wants him to practice cannibalism. But his right to "freely exercise his religion" won't save him from prosecution if he actually kills and eats his neighbor.
Then too, while all of us in America have an absolute First Amendment religious right to believe that a certain book (e. g., the Bible, the Quran, the Torah) is "sacred," all of us also have the right of free speech. For a Muslim, that includes the right to deny that the Bible is sacred, and even to burn his own copy of it as an act of protest or symbolic free speech.
In America, a man's right to believe a book is "God's word" does not give him the right to enforce that belief upon his neighbor. Any American who can't accept the supremacy of our Constitution on these issues, is an American in name only.
Our Constitution simply does not permit killing in the name of religion. Without religious tolerance, we regress to the dark ages, where religious freedom and tolerance were unknown. Those that chose such a world, are but an airline ticket away.
Posted Online: March 07, 2012, 4:51 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
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