It is easy to criticize those who generally disagree with us. It may be harder to praise those same people where we find common ground. Yet that perhaps is the best reason why we ought to compliment when the compliment is earned.
The ACLU actually stood in defense of the ministers Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp as they had intended to stage a protest outside of a Mosque in Dearborn yesterday. The actions of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy were derided as breaches of the free speech rights of the men.
The County successfully convinced a court to jail Mr. Jones and Mr. Sapp rather than let them protest, citing breach of the peace concerns. While such an issue is not invalid, the ACLU came down on the side of what even they think of as reprehensible speech.
For this, they and other Constitutional scholars, and several voices of Islam itself, who made positive comments on the proceedings must be thanked. They maintained a certain decent consistency on an important question of personal freedom. For though the approach of Jones and Sapp are dangerous and wrong, they have the same rights as anyone else.
In the end, truth be told, the entire situation was rather stupid. The ministers needed to employ more charity in their actions, and the Prosecutor's Office and the Court needed to display better judicial foresight in theirs. Still, circumstances may make for odd bedfellows. But when we are on the same page, decency calls for us to acknowledge as much.
Showing posts with label Terry Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terry Jones. Show all posts
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Afghan deaths are not Terry Jones' Fault
Three United Nations workers and four Nepalese guards were killed in Afghanistan recently during the route of a protest aimed at revenge for a Florida pastor's having burned copies of the Quran. Revenge, mind you, being the very operative term here. Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the pastor. "The demonstration was meant to protest against the insane and totally despicable gesture by one person who burned the holy Quran," he said.
Granting that this is true, and there is little reason to doubt that in the direct and immediate sense it is, it still seems as though a further, and worse, quite frankly, 'insane and totally despicable gesture' has occurred. That gesture is precisely what was perpetrated by the protesters in Afghanistan.
We are told, almost incessantly, that Islam is the 'religion of peace'. Yet the actions of those purporting to practice the Muslim faith appear to say exactly the opposite: mock us and we will kill you. With any provocation, we will not turn the other cheek, but, rather, hunt you down and extract vengeance for your crimes. Even if those we choose to exact our revenge upon are not particularly close to the source.
What the Reverend Terry Jones did is indeed reprehensible and indefensible. There is no case in its favor. Yet in the same manner, what he did cannot ever be seen as a defense of what that Afghan crowd did either. Blaming him for the deaths of those UN workers and guards, even tangentally, lets the mob off the hook. They murdered seven innocents. That is not and never will be fully on the soul of Terry Jones. It will be primarily on the hands of the murderers themselves, and nothing less.
To say it any other way is to ignore the real cause of this most heinous act. The real sin lay with those who committed willful murder. The blood of the victims is not on the hands of a peripheral American minister. It stains only the religion it claims to believe in and live.
Granting that this is true, and there is little reason to doubt that in the direct and immediate sense it is, it still seems as though a further, and worse, quite frankly, 'insane and totally despicable gesture' has occurred. That gesture is precisely what was perpetrated by the protesters in Afghanistan.
We are told, almost incessantly, that Islam is the 'religion of peace'. Yet the actions of those purporting to practice the Muslim faith appear to say exactly the opposite: mock us and we will kill you. With any provocation, we will not turn the other cheek, but, rather, hunt you down and extract vengeance for your crimes. Even if those we choose to exact our revenge upon are not particularly close to the source.
What the Reverend Terry Jones did is indeed reprehensible and indefensible. There is no case in its favor. Yet in the same manner, what he did cannot ever be seen as a defense of what that Afghan crowd did either. Blaming him for the deaths of those UN workers and guards, even tangentally, lets the mob off the hook. They murdered seven innocents. That is not and never will be fully on the soul of Terry Jones. It will be primarily on the hands of the murderers themselves, and nothing less.
To say it any other way is to ignore the real cause of this most heinous act. The real sin lay with those who committed willful murder. The blood of the victims is not on the hands of a peripheral American minister. It stains only the religion it claims to believe in and live.
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