Constitutional Law

Obama implores minister to call off Quran-burning

By By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest on Sept. 11.

Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview aired today that he hoped the Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., would listen to the pleas of people who have asked him to call off the plan. The president called it a "stunt."

"If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," Obama said. "That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance."

"And as a very practical matter, I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women who are in uniform," the president added.

Said Obama: "Look, this is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan." The president also said Jones' plan, if carried out, could serve as an incentive for terrorist-minded individuals "to blow themselves up" to kill others.

"I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he's engaging in," the president said of Jones.

Although Jones has said repeatedly he planned to go through with his plan despite the mounting pressure to call off the bonfire, USA Today reported  Jones said in an interview that if the White House, State Department or Pentagon were to call him, "that would cause us to definitely think it over. ... I don't think a call from them is something we would ignore."

Several Obama administration officials have denounced the Quran-burning plan, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the ground commander in Afghanistan, said burning the Quran could endanger troops there. Yesterday the State Department ordered U.S. embassies around the world to assess their security ahead of the planned weekend demonstration.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said yesterday he would closely monitor what happens Saturday at the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville to try to ensure people are safe.

The Gainesville Police Department will be dealing with some 90,000 football fans and even more tailgaters expected for the Florida-South Florida game at 12:20 p.m. Saturday. The Quran burning is set for 6 p.m. Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe condemned the church's "offensive behavior."

"The Dove World Outreach Center is a tiny fringe group and an embarrassment to our community. They are opposed to Gainesville's true character," Lowe said in a statement.

He asked residents to avoid the church's cross streets on Saturday and to watch for suspicious behavior. No one from the department was available to comment late yesterday on security measures at the church, where at least one counter-protest was planned by a University of Florida student group.

At a news conference yesterday, Jones was flanked by an armed escort and said he had received more than 100 death threats since announcing in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Koran Day." The book, according to Jones, is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

Muslims consider the Quran the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect. At least one cleric in Afghanistan said it is the duty of Muslims to react and that could mean killing Americans.

Petraeus spoke yesterday with Afghan President Karzai about the matter, according to a military spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus.

"They both agreed that burning of a Quran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians," Gunhus said, and would "create problems for our Afghan partners ... as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations."

Not just the Democratic administration has weighed in. Ex-Alaska governor and former Republican candidate for vice president Sarah Palin said in a Facebook post that although people have the constitutional right to burn the Quran, doing so would be an "insensitive and an unnecessary provocation ? much like building a mosque at ground zero."

Conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck wrote in an Internet blog that burning the Quran is like burning the flag or the Bible ? something people can do in the United States, but shouldn't. Legal experts have said the burning would likely be protected by the First Amendment's right to free speech.

The foreign ministries of Pakistan and the Gulf nation of Bahrain issued some of the first official denunciations in the Muslim world, with Bahrain calling it a "shameful act which is incompatible with the principles of tolerance and coexistence." Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

The president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has also sent a letter to President Obama asking him to stop the bonfire.

In Pakistan, about 200 lawyers and civil society members marched and burned a U.S. flag in the central Pakistani city of Multan, demanding that Washington halt the burning of the Muslim holy book.

"If Quran is burned, it would be beginning of destruction of America," read one English-language banner held up by the protesters, who chanted "Down with America!"

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on September 08, 2010 (boomark / email).