Posted on 11/06/2010 10:01:01 AM PDT by IbJensen
Newark, N.J. (AP) - A former New Jersey train conductor fired after publicly burning pages from the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks filed a lawsuit Friday seeking reinstatement and monetary damages.
Derek Fenton's dismissal violated his constitutional right to free expression, the American Civil Liberties Union said in its lawsuit.
Fenton burned part of the Quran to protest plans to build an Islamic center several blocks from the World Trade Center site. Police ushered him from the scene, but he was not arrested. NJ Transit said it fired him two days later for violating its code of ethics.
Fenton "has the right to engage as a citizen in expressive activity about matters of public interest, including matters related to the proposed construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero," the lawsuit alleges. "When he burned pages of the Koran on September 11, 2010, as a protest against the center, Fenton was exercising that right."
NJ Transit's code of ethics requires employees to give notice to an ethics liaison officer before participating in political activities.
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The leader of a small Christian congregation in Gainesville, Fla., had planned to burn copies of the Islamic holy book to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary but called it off at the last minute.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
So many in this society hold the Quaran as sacred
Why? It’s just the ramblings of a nut to develop a cult of hate and dominance.
Most are afraid of repercussions by the nut’s followers so they pretend to “respect” it .
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I am not sure you have actually read the Koran. Perhaps you have - just not sure.
I spent much of the middle years of my life reading vast amount of scripture from the major world religions, and many sacred writings of off-shoots and cultish and fringe groups as well. I’ve read the entire Bible three times over the years, as well as the writings of many saints and commentators (I mention this for the bulk of folks here, who are Christian: I am not).
Twice I have sat down with solid and reputable translations of the Koran, never reading it in its entirity, but probably covering two thirds of it carefully between the two readings. It impressed me deeply as a holy book on par with the other great holy books I have read. It did not impress me as the crazed ramblings of a cult leader.
And yet . . .
The admonition of Jesus - true words even to a non-believer like myself - to judge a tree by its fruit, leads me to the conclusion that those who follow the religion based on the Koran are “bad fruit,” and as such I think the whole shebang should be erradicated as we would a cancer in our body. Every last cancer cell has to be eradicated. Every one. Every last Muslim.
And yet . . .
I went to the store during the “burn a Koran” rage to see if I might buy a copy of the Koran to symbolically burn. I couldn’t do it. I held in my hands a holy book, and I could not burn such a holy book for such a reason. I read it. I read it over and over sitting on the floor of the B&N. I tried several other translations. I couldn’t imagine burning it. God permeated the book. It was filled with the Divine: not the Divine as I believe it, but the Divine as I imagine others could believe it.
I could easily imagine slaughtering and destroying the entire fruit of this book, every last trace of the religion that has sprung from this book, every last Muslim man, women and child if that’s what it takes to end the evil - and I belive that is what it will take. But the book, the Koran, the Holy, Sacred, Divine words on those pages . . . No. With great respect, I simply placed it back on the shelf.
I believe that Truth trumps all. Truth is God, and vice versa. Along that line, I believe the “self-evident truths” that Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence. Anyone should have the liberty to burn any book they own. Buddhists, indeed, believe that burning is the only acceptable way to dispose of a scripture or scared object that is worn out. I would never burn a Koran in anger at its fruits - I know that because I put it to the test - but I have no problem with someone else doing so. I do, however, suggest that anyone who does so might want to first read what it is that they are burning.
Would be fine with me if we left the book on the shelf and just burned moslems to protest.
Jesus also said if you are not with Me, you are against Me.
The Koran is not with Him. It opposes Him directly, supplanting all the essential doctrines of salvation.
There is nothing holy about it.
God, though. I HATE to be on the same side as the ACLU.
He slashes spending, but he knows the muslims have invaded New Jersey!
Make some s’mores with the flames.
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