Atheist and Kurdish-Armenian asylum seeker Hamit Coskun has emerged triumphant from a year-long legal battle after he burned a Quran in protest near the Turkish embassy in London last February.
Probably the closest parallel in America is the rabid obsession by some to outlaw burning an American flag. Of course no one has the right to go around burning property owned by someone else, but I'm free to do anything I want to my own property, including, if I so choose, burn a flag that is mine by virtue of my having manufactured or bought it. (I'm assuming I've picked a location that won't start a forest fire, etc.).
People who scream that Quran or flag burning must be forbidden reveal a profound lack of confidence in their own beliefs. Any institution so fragile that it can't tolerate dissent deserves to die.
Probably the closest parallel in America is the rabid obsession by some to outlaw burning an American flag. Of course no one has the right to go around burning property owned by someone else, but I'm free to do anything I want to my own property, including, if I so choose, burn a flag that is mine by virtue of my having manufactured or bought it. (I'm assuming I've picked a location that won't start a forest fire, etc.).
People who scream that Quran or flag burning must be forbidden reveal a profound lack of confidence in their own beliefs. Any institution so fragile that it can't tolerate dissent deserves to die.