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"I'll be back."
A defiant Terry Jones says he plan s to protest next week at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn despite a judge's order that he stay from the mosque for three years. The Quran-burning pastor from Florida said his rights were violated Friday by a judge due to the influence of Islamic law.
"We plan to protest next week in front of the Islamic Center," Pastor Terry Jones said today.
"The arrests, the whole proceedings, were a definite violation of our Constitutional rights," Jones added. "As a matter of fact, we were arrested and had not even committed a crime. It is a complete violation of our First Amendment right of freedom of speech. It was clearly influenced by the mosque. "
Jones had wanted to protest Friday against jihad and sharia outside the Islamic Center on Friday, but was thwarted by authorities. The center is the largest mosque in metro Detroit, a region with a sizable Muslim population.
On Friday, Judge Mark Somers ordered that Jones and Pastor Wayne Sapp be remanded to jail after a jury determined they would be likely to breach the peace. In his decision Judge Somers set a $1 cash bond for Jones and Sapp, and also said Jones and Sapp could not go to the mosque or adjacent property for three years.
The only exception would be if the leadership of the mosque, such as its board, decided it would be ok for him to visit, Somers said.
Jones said that was an example of the influence of sharia, or Islamic law, in Dearborn.
"Sharia is much closer than we thought," Jones said. "The judge even made a statement, that if the mosque elders and leadership would have desired the restraints placed on us of not going near the mosque be lifted, then he would have taken that into consideration. Thus proving that this whole thing is a direct violation of freedom of speech and that they are favoring the religion of Islam."
Jones also questioned why he was allowed to protest at a free-speech zone in front of Dearborn City Hall, but not the mosque.
Dearborn Mayor John O'Reilly Jr. said that he and his city fully support free speech, but added that the right is not absolute. It has to take into consideration the rights of others and public safety. He has said repeatedly that there is no sharia at all being practiced by Dearborn officials.
The mayor said Friday that police will take appropriate action if Jones decides to ignore the judge's orders to stay away from the mosque.
PROTEST AGAINST THE DENIAL OF OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS
Stand Up America Now! with Dr. Terry Jones will protest on the steps of the City Hall in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday, April 29, 2011 at 5pm.
We invite every American who still believes in the freedom and rights that our Constitution guarantees to come and stand with us.
Thank you, Dr. Terry Jones
I'm starting to like this guy.
3 comments:
As a matter of principle, I don't support book burners, so the Islamophobes in Dearborn have put me in the awkward position of being on the side of Terry Jones.
The Dearborn situation seems to be a true case of Islamophobia. If Islam is indeed a religion of peace, then what difference does it make that a small handful of crackpots assemble across from a mosque? Wouldn't the peace-loving followers of the religion of peace just shrug their shoulders, express sadness over the dark hearts of the bigots, kick off their shoes and go into worship?
Steve, I don't see burning a Qur'an as an ethical problem for democrats. When Heine wrote about it he was referring to a long German tradition of Germans burning Jews. This is hardly the same. In fact, it's different.
The Qur'an according to Islam, is not a book at all, though obviously it exists as a physical object. Its importance to Islam is that it is the eternal word of Allah. The Qur'an, according to Islam, in pre-existing, eternal and co-eternal with Allah. The fact that it is a book is incidental. One can be sure that Muslims wouldn't care about the book at all if there were a way to read it "aurally," as it were. It is a recitation of Allah's "message." It's not the book that matters to Islam but the words, presented in the only practical medium there is at the time. So, the focus is not on the medium but the message. Burning the book is not important, essentially; it is the destruction of the message, the literal words of Allah that pisses off the Muslims. They would be, or should be, as upset if one erases the Qur'an from an mp3. I think not many of them care. We have to ask why. Why don't they get upset when one deletes a Qur'anic line from a computer screen? That is because they have fetishised the paper, having lost sight of the sense they began with that the book is a book, not the Word, as it were. Now, it's not about the Qur'an at all; it's about any excuse to riot, murder, and create hostility against outsiders in the expectation of creating further group solidarity within. The book is nothing much to them.
To us, a book is a real thing of metaphysical value. It transcends the text, rather than the opposite. We value books because we value work and money and expertise and the sheer creative display of the mind made real. For is a book is art. It is the fineness of man, even if it's Karl May pulp novels that Hitler used to read in homeless shelters. We don't burn these things because we value the individual effort that creates them. To attack a book is to attack in a visceral way the very mind itself. To burn a Qur'an is to attack the beliefs of a Muslim. We do that in the face of Irrationalism. We can't bring ourselves to actually defeat Muslims on the battlefield, as a rule, and we can't actually have a conversation with them on rational grounds because they are Irrationalists, and we talk at cross-purposes. So, to communicate our strongest dislike of what they do and say, we burn their book. In a sense, it's like spanking an hysterical child. One would rather talk, take away some toy, or otherwise deal with the child in a rational if firm fashion; but the out of control child cannot deal with rationality. One does the least harm one must to convey a point.
In our case, to burn a Qur'an is to defer burning a Muslim. It's a good thing.
Burn them both.
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