{"id":744,"date":"2010-09-09T18:00:19","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T00:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=744"},"modified":"2010-09-09T18:00:19","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T00:00:19","slug":"the-slippery-slope-starts-somewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=744","title":{"rendered":"The Slippery Slope Starts Somewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After two visits from F.B.I. agents, condemnations from General David Patraeus, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and a personal phone call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the “pastor” of a small Gainesville-area church finally backed down from a planned Koran burning event to be held at the church he leads — the Dove World Outreach Center.\u00a0 Mark this day on you calendars.\u00a0 For Thursday, September 9 will mark the beginning of the slippery slope whereby anything “offensive” to Islam will not be tolerated by the powers that be in the United States of America.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear at the outset.\u00a0 I believe that what “Pastor” Terry Jones and his followers planned on the 9th Anniversary of the attacks on our country by Muslim extremists — the burning of Korans — is insensitive, idiotic, and un-Christlike to the nth degree.\u00a0 I do not believe that any reasonable Christian would think that burning Korans would accomplish the Great Commission that Christ has given to His followers to carry out.\u00a0 I also believe that Gen. Patraeus and Defense Secretary Gates truly believe that our troops\u00a0will face increased dangers if the burning went on as planned.\u00a0 And, even if what Jones had planned is legal, that doesn’t make it right.\u00a0 Ditto the Ground Zero mosque<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Jones, after meeting with F.B.I. agents and with a central Florida Imam, says that he struck a deal to cancel the Koran burning in exchange for the relocation of the Ground Zero mosque.<\/a>\u00a0 Of course, the Imam in charge of the Ground Zero mosque project disputes that any deal was struck.\u00a0 Makes you wonder what was said to “Pastor” Jones, especially by our government officials.\u00a0 Probably no transcript of the F.B.I.’s\u00a0face-to-face interviews or Gates’ phone call with Jones will be forthcoming.<\/p>\n

And, here’s where things start to get slippery.\u00a0 Burning the flag of the United States of America is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.\u00a0 When’s the last time that you heard of a full-court press by government officials to stop a planned flag burning?\u00a0 That’s what I thought.\u00a0 Burning books — including the Bible — is\u00a0“speech” that is legally protected.\u00a0 Submerging a crucifix in urine and calling it art is not only legally protected, but has been federally funded by the National Endowment for the Arts<\/a>. (WARNING:\u00a0 Do not click link\u00a0if you are offended by this image<\/span>)\u00a0 While many Americans, including Christians, are highly offended by the aforementioned activities, there is little, if any, need to worry about world-wide violence ensuing by those so offended.\u00a0 Protests, yes.\u00a0 Mayhem and violence, not so much.\u00a0 But,\u00a0threaten to burn the Koran, well that’s another story altogether.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0slippery slope starts somewhere.\u00a0 For those who would dare speak against Islam in any negative tones whatsoever, that somewhere was outside the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL.\u00a0 Koran burning, while it might nominally be protected by the\u00a0First Amendment, is now off-limits.\u00a0 I’m sure that\u00a0Jones or someone\u00a0else will try this stunt again, but the\u00a0sled\u00a0carrying\u00a0the cargo of what is considered\u00a0Islamophobia\u00a0and anti-Muslim “rhetoric” has\u00a0now started its descent down the steep hill.\u00a0\u00a0We don’t know for sure where the sled will end up, but we can certainly\u00a0offer\u00a0an educated guess, based on past\u00a0experience in this country and in Western Europe.<\/p>\n

If Koran burning is on the sled, then negative comments about Islam, such as\u00a0when Franklin Graham called Islam a “vile and wicked\u00a0religion,” are on the sled as well.\u00a0 Well, you can say that, but it will get you disinvited to\u00a0Prayer Breakfasts at the Pentagon<\/a>.\u00a0 What about cartoons that mock or ridicule Islam?\u00a0 What about\u00a0television satire like South Park<\/em> which depicts the Prophet Mohammed in a bear costume?\u00a0 Oh wait, that was\u00a0already censored.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Of course, Christianity is fair game, but Islam is different.\u00a0\u00a0And, how about pastors who tell their congregations that they should share Jesus with their Muslim friends and neighbors because without Christ, people (Muslims and\u00a0non-Muslims alike)\u00a0will spend an eternity in hell separated from a loving and holy God?\u00a0 Look to Western Europe to see where the sled has already been.\u00a0 And, let’s not even get started about Christians living in Muslim nations.<\/p>\n

Am I glad that the Koran burning has been called off?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 It was a stupid and insensitive thing to even contemplate.\u00a0 However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secretary of Defense, put tremendous pressure on a small-church\u00a0“pastor”\u00a0to help him decide\u00a0not to follow through with the clearly offensive\u00a0Koran burning.\u00a0\u00a0As the sled of what is considered offensive to Islam\u00a0hurdles down the hill,\u00a0plowing over the First Amendment as it\u00a0goes, it is not a question if something else will be seen as offensive,\u00a0but merely what will be seen as offensive.\u00a0 The next time, it may not be the Dove World Outreach Center.\u00a0 It may be you.\u00a0 Or me.\u00a0 Remember, the slippery slope starts somewhere!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After two visits from F.B.I. agents, condemnations from General David Patraeus, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and a personal phone call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the “pastor” of a small Gainesville-area church finally backed down from a planned Koran burning event to be held at the church…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,19,29,1],"tags":[129,324,3379,3380,463,490,3388,687,760,820,847,908],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-religion","category-freedom-of-speech","category-islam","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-dove-world-outreach-center","tag-freedom-of-religion","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-ground-zero-mosque","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-islam","tag-muslims","tag-pastor-terry-jones","tag-radical-islam","tag-robert-gates","tag-slippery-slope"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-c0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}