But Is It A Hate Crime?

I have had a few people tweet to me that burning the Quoran, while reprehensible, is not a hate crime. One comment I liked was:

I agree burning anyone's religious texts is in bad taste, but hate crime? It's non-violent, and no one's immune to criticism, right?

Now, if you have even an inkling about me, you know that I do not care for organized religion and certainly believe that no one is immune from criticism. So I will not get upset if you burn the Quoran or the Bible, except that burning any book should raise the hackles on the back of everyone's neck and make you squirm and hear the echoes of goose-stepping military boots in the distance.

But if burning a cross on some one's lawn is a hate crime, then how is burning the Quoran not a hate crime? If defacing the Star of David is a hate crime, then so should the desecration of any religion's icons and holy documents. And it should not matter that you do not believe in the tenants inscribed on those pages to make it a hate crime.

If I were to stand in the middle of the street in Birmingham, Alabama and had a Bible burning bonfire, do you not think, once the crowd got through with me, that I would be tossed in jail and charged with a hate crime? Is it is a non-violent form of protest? Would I be able to get away with it in New York City? Or San Francisco?

At the crux of all of this are some very twisted individuals, on both sides of the aisle. Extremists exist in all religions and hardly are what any of us would describe as representative of that religion. Several hundred years ago, the Soldiers of Christ liberated the Holy Lands. Nine years ago, a jihad rained down fire on the heart of American capitalism. If you consider these extreme examples, then you clearly do not understand the base framework of the argument and will continue to think that burning the Quoran is not a hate crime.