They Hate Us For Our Freedoms And Junk

With a big h/t to Oliver Willis, we have the story of why the most radical and dangerous elements of those who choose to pervert Islam into a creed of hatred despise us so much:  because of our country founded upon religious freedoms and social tolerance.

Yes, it appears to have come to this: A religious institution protesting the allegedly retrograde outlook of a rival faith has adopted the medieval practice of book-burning — which has also been revived among Iran's militant Islamic mullahs.

The Dove World Outreach Center, based in Gainesville, Fla. — led by Terry Jones, author of the book "Islam Is of the Devil" — is planning to mark the upcoming anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks by staging a Koran burning. Church leaders are calling it the "International Burn a Koran Day" — a curious approach to promoting the idea of world outreach.

Maggie Hyde of the Religion News Service reported that the self-described "New Testament, Charismatic, Non-Denominational Church" has taken to Facebook to spread the word of its anti-Islam protest. According to Hyde, Jones and his colleagues drew inspiration for the event from the Facebook page encouraging people to draw pictures of Mohammed.  Jones said that supporters of the idea have already started mailing in copies of the Koran for the church to burn.

The church is also crusading against Gainesville's openly gay mayor. It plans to hold a "No Homo Mayor" protest outside Gainesville City Hall on Aug. 2.

...Oh wait.  My bad, they hate us because we also have fundamentalist assholes that pervert religion into a message of hatred and intolerance and we direct that message at Muslims just as their nutjobs direct their message of hate against us.

Now, I understand we were attacked on 9/11, but in turn we declared war on Iran and Afghanistan and killed a whole crapload of civilian innocents too, just not all on one idle Tuesday morning in September.  Commemorating 9/11 by burning things in general is in poor taste to begin with, but religious texts?  Really?  We're going to show them how we're better, more enlightened, and more advanced by torching a pile of books?

A whole ginormous collection of wrongs doesn't make anyone right.  Not even remotely.