it figures this guy is some florida religious whacko. he and his followers will cost American lives and he does not give a rat's ass. he's no better than the fucking klan.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.
"We are still determined to it, yes," the Rev. Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.
Jones says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran Day."
Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9⁄11 attacks.
Gen. David Petraeus took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence."
Jones responded that he is also concerned but is "wondering, 'When do we stop?'" He refused to cancel the protest at his Dove World Outreach Center but said he was still praying about it.
"How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?" Jones told the AP. "Instead of us backing down, maybe it's time to stand up. Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior."
Jones gained some local notoriety last year when he posted signs in front of his church declaring "Islam is of the Devil." But his Quran-burning idea attracted wider attention. It drew rebukes from Muslim nations and at home as an emotional debate was taking shape over the proposed Islamic center near the ground zero site of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
His actions most likely would be protected by the First Amendment's right to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear in several landmark rulings that speech deemed offensive to many people, even the majority of people, cannot be suppressed by the government unless it is clearly directed to intimidate someone or amounts to an incitement to violence, legal experts said.
The fire department has denied Jones a required burn permit, but he said lawyers have told him he has the right to burn the Qurans, with or without the city's permission.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during a meeting Tuesday with religious leaders to discuss recent attacks on Muslims and mosques around the U.S. called the planned burning idiotic and dangerous, according to a Justice Department official. The official requested anonymity because the meeting was private.
How can his lawyer say he has the right to burn them when he has been denied a burn permit?
First Amendment right. just like flag burners, soldier funeral protesters, and the klan. they all have a right. but do they have a MORAL right? he will cost lives. he needs to go back to burning crosses in his sheet costume. he's a fool and a simpleton.
it's too bad he and his idiot followers are getting national attention, but it has become a cause celebre. like a klan rally in GA. last year. i hope it's much ado about nothing and only serves to illustrate the tiny little minds that inhabit some pockets of this country.
General Petraeus warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence." He said the book burning would imperil U.S. soldiers and civilians and the war effort in the Islamic nation.
Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe issued a public statement condemning the church's plan, describing it as "a tiny fringe group and an embarrassment to our community."
GAINESVILLE — Pastor Terry Jones stayed holed up in his Dove World Outreach Center most of Tuesday. His center is a large prefab warehouse on a treeless field in a rural neighborhood. It has a large neon cross over the entrance that someone shattered with a rock.
The field outside looked like an RV park, TV news trucks parked everywhere. They parked in front of a sign with red letters that read: "International Burn a Koran Day."
Camera operators waited for Jones to come out and talk about burning Korans on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but he declined to leave his office. His wife, Sylvia, chased a trespassing newswoman out of the building and threw her off the property.
Other than his wife, Jones seemed to be alone. Two associate pastors, husband and wife Wayne and Stephanie Sapp, roamed the lawn, talking to media. They wore .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols in holsters on their hips. They said they'd had hundreds of threats.
Inside, Jones, 58, remained behind his plain desk, most of his face masked by a thick, sculpted gray mustache that rose almost to his sideburns. If he was armed, the gun wasn't showing.
Behind him on the wall was a gun range target. Next to it was a head of death in a Middle Eastern headdress. The target's bull's-eye focused on the figure's chest.
Beside the targets was a movie poster, showing Mel Gibson as Braveheart.
"People are trying to associate us with Nazis," Jones said.
"The Nazis gathered up all the books they disagreed with and burned them."
On Saturday, he said, he's just burning the Koran.
"This is not a purification of society. It's a protest."
• • •
The Koran burning was planned months ago. Many in Gainesville have known about it since last summer. Kids from the center showed up in town and on the University of Florida campus in T-shirts that read, "Islam Is of the Devil."
The neighboring Trinity United Methodist Church tried to ignore it. But recently Jones got on CNN and the Koran burning story went everywhere. It even reached Afghanistan, where Jones was burned in effigy and Gen. David Petraeus said the book burning could jeopardize the mission of U.S. troops.
In Washington, a broad coalition of religious leaders from evangelical, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim organizations called Jones' plan a violation of American values.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the threat to burn Korans a "disrespectful, disgraceful act." At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs echoed the concerns raised by Petraeus. "Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern to this administration," Gibbs told reporters.
Up to now, the Dove World Outreach Center, which is nondenominational but follows the Pentecostal tradition, has scraped by with a congregation of 50 "on a good day," said Wayne Sapp.
Jones was previously a hotel manager in Tennessee. He has published a book called Islam is of the Devil that sells for $12.99. He sells an Islam devil coffee mug for $14.99. WHORE.
He had just three people watching his back on Tuesday. But now he has a worldwide audience.
Trinity Methodist decided it needed to do something. Pastor Dan Johnson said he had prayed over calling on Jones, but decided they had nothing in common. Instead, he helped organize a Gainesville Interfaith Forum, made of up of Christians, Jews and Muslims. They're holding a counter-protest at Trinity on Friday night. They made the church into a big hall where they will have booths for different religions, baskets of bread from cultures around the world, and a candle-lighting ceremony. They expect about 1,200 people.
"We're seeing what good can come out of a bad situation," Johnson said.
• • •
At Dove World, Jones has set three hours aside on Saturday night for the Koran burning.
The FBI and Gainesville police have asked him not to allow crowds on the lawn. Whoever comes will be kept near the street, about 30 yards from the burning. Sapp said they have no idea what kind of crowd to expect. "It could be five, it could be 5,000," he said.
Jones has about 200 Korans. They've been shipped to the church by sympathizers from all over the country, along with donations. Many of the Korans were ordered on Amazon.com.
Sapp said he and his wife and a couple of other associate pastors will pile the holy books on the center of the lawn. Jones will speak and lead prayers, then they'll light the bonfire.
• • •
TV reporters hammered Sapp all day. How could you send a message of hate? How could you ignore the pleas of Petraeus? He told them the church answers to God, and, so far, God says it's a go. right. these wingnuts always have a private line to what God says.
Sapp said no church has been so maligned as his.
"No one in history has been through anything like this," he said. "Jesus had just one part of the world down on him. We've got the whole world."
he's also a bullshitter.
Jones ran into legal trouble while in Germany and was convicted by a Cologne administrative court in 2002 of falsely using the title of "doctor" although he had not completed a Ph.D., and fined him €3000 ($3,800).
Jones calls himself "Dr." on the website of the Dove World Outreach Center, an independent church that he now leads in Gainesville, Florida.
How the hell can he call himself a pastor? Look at that crap on his wall. Jesus Christ. I don't see him as being pious & Christian like. Someone is going to take the law into their own hands & take this moron out.
Hell, I fried up a Koran just the other day in bacon fat no one said anything to me. The leather bound ones taste OK but you gotta gut the pages out after soaking them in salt water.
He should strike a deal with the Iranians..........he will not burn the books if they do not stone women that are frisky.
Christians have been fighting with Islam forever, but I do agree this guy is just looking for the spotlight. He is putting gas on the fire. But I also disagree with many of Islams stupid laws, It is archaic, and usually the un-educated become radicals, but with the laws that some countries restrain their people regarding unrestrained education and allowing females and males to be taught the same. The masses of the un-educated is growing. There is a class seperation that is swallowing up the stupid ones into a big fireball of radicalism.
At least with Christians they are not putting people to death for converting to Islam. Not so the other way around. Asia and the middle east need an M.L.K. but usually they are killed beforehand. And America is richer because of its freedoms. But it does not come cheap.
EXCELLENT AND ON POINT EDITORIAL BY MIKE THOMAS OF ORLANDO SENTINEL TODAY! well worth reading...
The Rev. Terry Jones was a sad-sack preacher, lucky to draw 50 people to his steel-shed house of prayer, when the words "burn" and "Quran" had an unfortunate collision in his limited brain.
That he has become an international phenomenon as a result must be a sign the apocalypse is near.
We actually have Gen. David Petraeus, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House and even the pope pleading with a hick pastor not to burn books. This is a guy who looks like Jed Clampett wearing a Hulk Hogan mustache, who uses words like "tragical," who earlier this year launched a "No homo mayor'' campaign against a candidate in Gainesville.
Last year Jones sent the kids of the congregation off to school in "Islam is of the devil" T-shirts. Of course they got booted, which got Jones an enticing taste of media attention.
But that was small taters. There are a million Muslim bashers in the big city, and Jones had to do better to hit the big time.
So he got a big old sign and put it on a big old truck in a big old field. It said: "International Burn a Koran Day."
Ding! Ding! Ding!
It was like the three strawberries coming into alignment on a million-dollar slot machine. The New York Times and The Associated Press whipped out their notepads. The networks and cable stations broke out the indignant anchors.
"No Muslim is going to be on your side when you burn their holy book," huffed CNN's Kiran Chetry. "It's silly."
"By carrying through with this, you could be contributing to the harm or death of an American soldier," argued Kelly Cobiella from CBS.
"Do you really think that if Jesus Christ were here today, he would say, 'Pastor go burn that holy book?'" asked ABC's Terry Moran.
Course he would!
I mean, seriously, are they expecting Jones to slap the side of his head in a moment of rational thought and introspection and, right there on camera, take it all back? By golly, you're right. Jesus wouldn't burn them books so I'm just going back to my irrelevant life. See ya'll.
This is someone who can barely scrape together enough people to carry a tune in church, and now he has the world breathlessly waiting for his next words.
He is a regular Moses on the mountaintop, urging the spineless Christians to take a stand against the Muslim hordes.
Even better, Jones is getting burned in effigy over in Kabul, where — on cue — the Islamo whack jobs are demanding President Barack Obama send one of his warlords to silence this crazy infidel.
Crazy begets even crazier.
That all this might get some 20-year-old kid from Ohio blown away in Afghanistan isn't about to stop Jones now.
The good pastor has done found his version of 72 virgins and is living in paradise.
As much as everyone is blaming him, this is far from his fault. He's just a prop.
I ask you: If a sad little man burns some Qurans in the woods, and the media aren't there to film it, is it news?
Of course not.
We created the Rev. Terry Jones from dust. And in two weeks, to dust he shall return. Then we'll move on to the guys who plan to run over the Quran at their monster-truck pull. Whatever it takes to keep your attention.
It is all so truly tragical.
We could help head off such future nonsense if we folded up the circus tent and left Jones alone with his blowtorch and 30 followers.
Maybe if Gen. Petraeus told the media that it isn't Rev. Jones who is endangering troops. That it is our coverage of Rev. Jones. That without us, this book burning would be little more than a grainy video on YouTube.
Put the onus on a responsible party and hope it acts responsibly.
He has been on the news here In England.
What gets me Is the Islamic Extremists can burn our flag here and get away with It but threaten to burn their Koran and It Is war.
I do not agree with any Government pandering to religion but this Is madness simply due to the amount of Extremists who will take this as a blue light for terrorism.
Of course America had been discovered earlier. It was hushed up.
i don't know how accurate, but it broke ONE minute ago that the reverend dickwad is not going to have his little bonfire.
waiting for details. i wonder if the friendly visit from the FBI and Interpol had anything to do with his decision? *snicker*
a local baptist church said they'll have a nice bookburning/wienieroast instead.
::laughp:: he'll say it's decency when it's probably money...
Local governments said they were going to bill Jones for the extra cost of security for Saturday's event.
well he got his 15 minutes.
(CNN) -- A Florida pastor said Thursday he called off his plan to burn copies of the Quran based on assurances that a planned Islamic center and mosque near ground zero in New York would be moved -- an assertion rejected by the center's visionary.
The Rev. Terry Jones, who had planned the burning this weekend on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, said he will travel Saturday to New York to meet with the religious leader behind the planned center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, about a new location.
But Rauf and Imam Muhammad Musri, a Florida Muslim leader who appeared with Jones, said no agreement on a meeting or relocation of the mosque had been reached.
Rauf issued a statement later Thursday.
"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones or Imam Musri. I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."
The back-and-forth over the mosque location and the meeting continued into the evening Thursday. Jones insisted he had been told of a deal on moving the center, but Musri said instead he had brokered a meeting with Rauf.
"We are canceling the event because they have agreed to move the ground zero mosque," Jones said, claiming his announcement was based on several conversations with Musri.
But the latter said he had not spoken with Rauf and was not authorized to say the Islamic center would be moved. Jones may have "stretched" their conversations to say there was a deal, Musri told CNN. He said he believes Jones knows there was no deal on the mosque.
Rauf's office told him they would welcome Jones to a meeting if he canceled the Quran burning, Musri said.
Sharif El-Gamal, developer of Park51, denied there had been a change in plans for the New York center.
"It is untrue that the community center known as Park51 in lower Manhattan is being moved," El-Gamal said in a statement. "The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehood."
Jones, pastor of the Gainesville-based Dove World Outreach Center, said he felt a relocation of the mosque "would be a sign from God."
you just KNOW he's a snake-oil salesman. a low-rent elmer gantry...
reports emerged yesterday of Jones's mission in Germany, where he established the Christian Community of Cologne in 1982 after having "received a sign from God". However, when Jones left Cologne 26 years later, it was as a disgraced preacher who had allegedly forced members to give him a percentage of their earnings, made them work for little or no money and caused the breakup of families and friendships. He reportedly also faked a title as doctor of theology, for which he was fined, and was eventually dismissed by the church board in 2008.
Andrew Schäfer, an official sect monitor for the Protestant church in the Rhine region, who has closely observed the activities of the community, said Jones had "enormous manipulative potential" and believed his failure in Germany had led to his increased desire to achieve notoriety in Florida. "He has clearly not been able to cope with the immense loss of his power and significance," said Schäfer.
Among the numerous reports of the ways in which Jones used to manipulate members were demands for money, as well as complete commitment to the community. Members were reportedly made to work in the community's "Lisa Jones" shops, named after his first wife, which sold secondhand clothes and furniture. They apparently worked long hours, lived on next to no wages, and had no health insurance – a requirement all German employers have to fulfil. They were forced to review relationships with family and friends and in some cases to break up with partners.
I had kind of a heated conversation with a friend about this. He thought that given what other countries do to the American flag that this guy burning the Quran was no big deal, I disagreed, I think as Americans we should be the bigger person, just because someone does something to you doesn't make it alright for you to do the same or worse to them. That's how I feel about personal bullshit too.
now the fuckwit has issued an ultimatum! but did not say what will happen if it's not met. maybe he'll throw himself on a pile of burning books! YEAH!
a couple Kansas and Tenn. preachers are going to burn some too.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The pastor of a tiny Gainesville church and a controversial Christian evangelist said Friday afternoon they are giving a New York imam two hours commit to move a planned Islamic center away from ground zero.
be a complete asshole publicity whore and get a new car! YAY!
he says he will donate it to abused muslim women. what are they going to do with it? out-run camel fuckers?
SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey car dealer plans to keep his word after offering Florida pastor Terry Jones a new car if he promised to not burn a Quran.
Car dealer Brad Benson made the offer in one of his dealership's quirky radio ads, which focus more on current events than cars. But he was surprised when a representative for Jones called to collect the 2011 Hyundai Accent, which retails for $14,200.
"They said unless I was doing false advertising, they would like to arrange to pick up the car," Benson recalled. At first he thought it was a hoax, so Benson asked Jones to send in a copy of his driver's license. He did.
The Gainesville pastor never burned a Quran but told The Associated Press on Thursday that the offer of a car was not the reason, saying he learned about the offer a few weeks after Sept. 11.
London (CNN) -- Britain has denied entry to the Florida pastor who said last year that he was "praying about" whether to burn Qurans to protest the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"The government opposes extremism in all its forms which is why we have excluded Pastor Terry Jones from the UK," a Home Office spokesperson said in a statement. "Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour."
Jones vowed to take legal action to change the decision. "Just as a human being, I believe it is restrictive, against my right to travel, against my right to my opinion, to express my opinion, against basic principles of freedom of religion and freedom of speech," he said in a telephone interview.
He said he had planned to go to Britain February 9 and to spend a week to 10 days there with his church group. He has been invited to speak at several rallies in England and do book signings, he said.
Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, threatened last September to burn the Quran. "We have firmly made up our mind, but at the same time, we are definitely praying about it," Jones had told CNN.
But he changed his mind after his proposal drew sharp criticism from Muslims around the world and from U.S. officials. Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said the burning of Islam's holy books "could cause significant problems" for American troops overseas.
His book, "Islam Is of the Devil," is ranked at number 960,762 by Amazon.com.
![[Image: Zy3rKpW.png]](https://i.imgur.com/Zy3rKpW.png)
just like flag burners, soldier funeral protesters, and the klan. they all have a right. but do they have a MORAL right? he will cost lives. he needs to go back to burning crosses in his sheet costume. he's a fool and a simpleton. ![[Image: 2mquqfo.gif]](http://i44.tinypic.com/2mquqfo.gif)
the fucker, I think[/b]
They said they'd had hundreds of threats.
![[Image: 2w3olk7.gif]](http://i34.tinypic.com/2w3olk7.gif)
