No, the Florida pastor who threatened to hold a "Burn a Quran Day" hasn't killed anyone, but he's managed to spark protests around the world, warnings from the FBI and the State Department, and a direct call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The latter event gave me essentially the same feeling I get in the immediate aftermath of an attempted terrorist attack, when politicians insist Americans clearly have too much freedom and propose stripping the citizenship of alleged terrorists or deny them Miranda rights or access to a lawyer. That pastor's act was not the direct cause of any deaths, but the entire plan was a hostile, theatrical gesture meant to provoke an overreaction from Americans, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, drawing round the clock media coverage and the attention of a Cabinet-level government official. As with terrorism, the real danger comes from overreacting, and we've overreacted.
The problem with overreacting, of course, is that it just inspires more of the same. I don't doubt that the threat of violence against Americans and American service members that would have been inspired by this event is very real, but now that this Florida pastor has shown one need only threaten to burn the Quran to draw the attention of the president of the United States, it seems fairly likely that there will be more. Is Robert Gates going to call every single one of them personally?
The pastor claimed that he agreed to not continue with the event on the basis of an agreement with Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf that the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero be moved, which Rauf denies. His terms echo almost completely Republicans' attempts to equate the deliberately malicious act of burning the Quran with the presence of Muslims near Ground Zero, as though the two were equally offensive. The two events are related, but only in the sense that both involve holding Muslims collectively responsible for terrorism. The ritual burning of the Quran would be an act that holds all Muslims responsible for the deeds of al-Qaeda, but so does the argument that Muslims cannot build a community center near Ground Zero because the 9/11 perpetrators were Muslims. Burn-a-Quran-man disagrees with John Boehner and Sarah Palin only in matters of taste, not principle. There shouldn't be any more negotiations with this man.
