Free Republic

MULBERRY, Fla. (AP)— Polk County sheriff’s deputies arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, and his associate pastor, Marvin Sapp Jr., 34,..He had said he was heading to a nearby park to burn 2,998 Qurans — one for every victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks... Mulberry’s mayor, along with area elected officials, a sheriff’s deputy and several Polk County residents have talked about the need to express love and tolerance for all faiths on Sept. 11. [snip]

As the Arab International Festival kicks off this Friday, festival-goers will be joined by an unusual guest: Quran-burning Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who is planning a rally and march to coincide with the three-day festival’s start. The annual Arab International Festival, hosted by Dearborn’s American Arab Chamber of Commerce, is one of the largest Arab-American social events in the country, attracting an estimated 300,000 people to a 12-block section of Dearborn’s Warren Avenue between Schaefer and Wyoming. It will take place June 17-19 and feature carnival rides, children’s activities and a slew of live entertainers. But before the event even...

The world was aghast at the ignorance of Pastor Terry Jones and of his quest to burn a Koran. No matter that Islam is a false religion that beheads Christians. No matter that Gen. Petraeus burned Bibles in Afghanistan so as to appease the Muslims. No matter that Pastor Jones was exercising his rights, it was almost universally condemned. Petraeus and other Pentagon brass-holes especially blasted the act of burning Korans, stating this puts innocent lives at risk. It put our troops in more serious danger. That leads us to what happened yesterday. Barack Obama has killed Osama bin Laden....

In a travesty of justice, Florida’s Pastor Jones was put on trial in last week in Dearborn Michigan, he was found guilty of threatening to protest in front of a mosque (possibly burning a Koran in the process). He was ordered to pay a 1$ dollar bond fee, and is prohibited from approaching the mosque for 3 years, when he refused to pay the fee he was jailed. This decision by six jurors and a judge (who I assume went to law school at some point) exposes the complete Constitutional illiteracy of our populace and even judiciary. Here are three...

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) -- A New Jersey car dealer plans to keep his word after offering Florida pastor Terry Jones a new car if he promised to not burn a Quran. Car dealer Brad Benson made the offer in one of his dealership's quirky radio ads, which focus more on current events than cars. But he was surprised when a representative for Jones called to collect the 2011 Hyundai Accent, which retails for $14,200......

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey car dealer plans to keep his word after offering Florida pastor Terry Jones a new car if he promised to not burn a Quran. Snip... He said he plans to donate the car to an organization that helps abused Muslim women. "We are not trying to profit from this. We are not keeping the car for ourselves," Jones said. Jones had threatened to burn the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks over plans to build an Islamic center ... His plans drew opposition [AND SUPPORT!] across the...

Florida pastor Terry Jones vowed never to burn a Koran hours after he arrived in New York on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Not today, not ever," Jones said on NBC's "Today" show Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Jones, who created a firestorm across the world this week with plans to burn Islam's sacred book, was widely criticized for coming to New York City on the mournful anniversary. "Who's going to be the next person looking for their next 15 minutes of fame? I'm appalled by it," Gov. Paterson said Saturday....

The pastor at the centre of the Koran-burning row has challenged a New York Imam to call off the building of a mosque at Ground Zero.Pastor Terry Jones and his colleague Pastor K A Paul read out their telephone number live on television and said the Imam has just two hours to respond. Sky News' US correspondent Robert Nisbet, who was at the news conference, said: "This is absolutely extraordinary. "It appear that the pastor has reconsidered his earlier deal over the New York mosque." [ snip ] VIDEO of Press conference at link

By Victor Davis Hanson Everyone is trying to outdo one another in righteous condemnation of the Reverend Terry Jones and his micro-flock, to assure the world that 50 people out of 300 million does not a majority make. That is altogether fine and good, and yet we all know the asymmetry involved — whether it is a scholarly remark made by a pope and the Muslim riots in response, or the policies of many Arab countries forbidding open worship by other religions and, in some cases, the presence of non-Muslims in entire cities. But all that said, our political and...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The anti-Muslim leader of a tiny Florida church says he was lied to and is rethinking his decision to cancel burning Qurans to mark 9/11. Pastor Terry Jones earlier Thursday had backed off his threat to burn the Quran after he said he was promised that a planned Islamic center and mosque would be moved away from New York's ground zero. Muslim leaders denied there was such a deal. Later outside his church he said that the imam he thought he made the deal with "clearly, clearly lied to us" about moving the mosque.

Shirley Phelps-Roper calls out Florida preacher for plans to burn Quran ... 'cause she did it first By Justin Kendall, Thu., Sep. 9 2010 @ 2:00PM Terry Jones has angered the Westboro Baptist Church.... Shirley Phelps-Roper is reportedly calling Jones a poseur. Fred Phelps' daughter told the Star that Westboro's was burning the Islamic religious text on a Washington, D.C., street back in 2008. "We did it a long time before this guy," Phelps-Roper told the Star... "They'll browbeat him and he'll back down at the last minute," she said. "He's an apologist. He doesn't serve God."

I think most rational thinking people will agree that Pastor Terry Jones made the right decision to scrap his plan to burn the Quran at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida on the anniversary of 9/11. No one can deny that he has a Constitutional right to do so; the question is – whether it is morally right to do so? Conversely an overwhelming majority of American’s object to the Cordoba Group’s plan to build a Mosque at Ground Zero in New York. Again, the question isn't whether they have a right to build the mosque – the...

Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.