Honestly, just watch this special comment by Keith Olbermann, or read this piece on the Huffington Post, they say everything I wanted to and more.  My thoughts and summary are after the break.

Today a lot of Qur’ans are supposed to be burning.  Today a man named Terry Jones, the leader of a small Christian congregation in Gainesville Florida called the Dove World Outreach Center was supposed to be lighting hundreds if not thousands of copies of the Qur’an on fire today.  His goal was to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by destroying a book that he thought was full of lies, that proved that Islam was a dangerous and brutal religion, and was responsible for all Islamic fundamentalism.

He says that it is Islam’s mission to dominate the world and to replace the constitution of the US with sharia law.

Where do you even start with something like that?

Well, they didn’t burn any Qur’ans today.  That didn’t actually happen, but quite a lot has since his announcement on July 12th.  Mostly, there has been an outpouring of condemnation from pretty much every corner of the planet.  In response to the group he created on facebook, which became about 16,000 people strong before it was pulled down, hundreds of thousands have joined opposing groups.  The Vatican, the National Association of Evangelicals, the World Evangelical Alliance, the UN Secretary General, the US Secretary of Defense, the US Secretary of State, General David Petraeus, the chancellor of Germany, the President of the United States, and our own Prime Minister have all condemned the act.

So, seeing as absolutely no one is taking his side on this, Jones begins to talk back his original stance, saying the he is open and “still praying” over the issue.  On September 9th he claims that he will cancel the event and says that he has reached an agreement with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the “Ground Zero Mosque” (more on this later), to move the proposed site away from Ground Zero.  This comes as a surprise to the Imam, who claims to have agreed to a meeting with Jones, but that there was no agreement to move the site.  Jones then expresses his displeasure, claiming several times that he was duped and that the Imam was lying.  But this doesn’t work either, so eventually Jones cancels the event, saying the he will not burn any Qur’ans now or in the future.

Now, here is what I think really happened.  Terry Jones quickly figures out that this whole ‘Burn a Qur’an Day’ only makes sense in his very small corner of Florida, and so he tries to use the massive amount of attention given to him by the media to his advantage.  Since he has Islam hate on the brain lately he has probably been thinking a lot about the “Ground Zero Mosque” and what better way to save the day than claim that he has agreed not to burn the Qur’ans if they move the mosque.  Brilliant.  A few problems though.

One- the guy in charge, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, called his rather obvious bluff.

Two- the “Ground Zero Mosque” is not a mosque, and is not at Ground Zero.  Like, not even a little bit.  For starters, it was planned as a community center, a place for all faiths to come and worship, and also to play basketball and use the swimming pool.  It is going to be thirteen stories high, two floors of which can serve as a prayer space.  It is two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, and you can’t even see the WTC.  Go ahead, check.  Go to google maps and type in 51 Park Place New York City, NY.  Go to the street view, it’s the closed shuttered brick building with the “Burlington Coat Factory” sign.  It’s been closed since 2001, when a piece of one of the planes fell through the ceiling.

So, technically, the Imam could have said, “Yes Terry, we will move the community cen- er, mosque right away.  See, it’s two blocks away now, those going to the WTC memorial won’t even know it is there.”  But that would be giving in to an idiot, and this Imam has shown that he is made of stronger stuff than that.

The whole thing sparked a conversation about free speech, which is the only leg Jones has to stand on.  Lots of people remarked that it was perhaps unfortunate that Jones wasn’t going to be breaking any laws, except maybe some public burning ordinances.  To be frank, this made me really, really happy.  I am overjoyed that people like Terry Jones have the legally protected right to have these kinds of protests.  It’s awesome.  This whole thing has thrown into sharp relief that old adage about yelling fire in a crowded theatre.  As we have seen, Terry Jones has that right, but the point of that story is that just because you have the right doesn’t make you right, it doesn’t make in a good idea.  Terry Jones, by way of this ridiculous stunt, could have further endangered thousands of men and women overseas and would have surely upset the already tumultuous relationship the States has with Islam.

Just because you have the right to do these kinds of things doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, and it doesn’t mean everyone gets a voice.  Especially when the voice in question is informed by nothing but hate and that charming mix of arrogance and ignorance.  Spend five minutes listening to Pastor Terry Jones and you’ll know that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or anything about Islam, other that they read the Qur’an, and that he doesn’t.  The media should have taken one look at this guy and run the other direction.  But they didn’t and so here we are.

At the end of it all, the Pastor just kept on lying, saying that he did all this to, “expose that there is an element of Islam that is very dangerous and very radical.”  He then added that, “We have definitely accomplished that.”  But what I am sure he didn’t realize was that he did the same thing for Christianity.