Qur'ans, Bibles, and U.S. Flags

The Florida pastor of a small Christian church in Gainesville, FL found himself at the center of an international firestorm last week. Even the staunchest of conservatives advised him against burning Qur’ans in protest of Islam. U.S. Commander in Afghanistan David Petraeus said it would endanger our troops.

However alienated and marginalized Pastor Terry Jones may be as a result, an unintended consequence of his plan is the exposure of a new low water mark for egregious and blatant double standards.

Burning Qur’ans would have been ill-advised. That point was conceded. The problem is the consistency of outrage, or lack thereof. Of Jones’s plan, Secretary of State Clinton called it a “disrespectful, disgraceful act.” Yet, as a New York Senator in 2006, then Senator Hillary Clinton cast the deciding vote against an amendment that would have made burning the United States flag illegal.

The argument over the Ground Zero mosque has been not so much about legality as it has been about appropriateness. President Obama defended the right of the Cordoba Initiative to build the mosque but said he would not comment on the “wisdom” of the decision to do so. In the case of Pastor Jones, both Secretary of State Clinton and Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley – each of whom speak on behalf of the president – had no problem commenting on the wisdom of the Qur’an burning. Crowley said the act would have been “un-American” while also comparing it to the 9/11 attacks.

Perhaps even trumping this apparent unequal reverence for the Qur’an compared to our country’s flag is what happened in Afghanistan last year.

Christian Bibles were printed in two different Afghan languages by a United States church and sent unsolicited to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Those Bibles were ultimately confiscated and burned – not by terrorists, Muslims, or Afghanis, but by U.S. Military personnel. The act of burning Bibles was perpetrated by Americans in Afghanistan. The reason given by Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Wright was that the Bibles could endanger U.S. Troops.

Just to clarify, burning Qur’ans in America puts U.S. Troops in danger in Afghanistan. Not burning Bibles in Afghanistan does the same thing.

The message being sent to our troops and civilian Americans by our most prominent military and civilian leaders is clear: it is ok to burn your country’s flag and even your Bible but it is unacceptable and even un-American to burn the Qur’an.