American pastor Terry Jones vows to hold national Koran burning event

How would the safety of passengers or their facility be affected? The guy does not even seem to have a directly customer-facing job.

That is not freedom of speech. What would you say if it was an American flag? The same?

 

It's not exactly rockets science, you don't burn a Q'uran while wearing company clothing.

 

I think it's pretty obvious that Islamists share the same rights as we do since they can easily burn an effigy of a preacher and burn our american flag. Expose these throwbacks for what they are, hyporcrites of the lowest order, I say burn the book...

 

No need to actually do it, Dr. Colbert explains

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That has nothing to do with it- the media can find this stuff out regardless- duh! When I was a teacher, if I burned the Koran in a public place, obviously they wouldn't know I was a teacher because we don't have a uniform. But when someone does something this inflammatory and newsworthy, the press is going to research the person, and then the news stories are going to come out,"John Doe, a teacher at ______ High School, burned the Q'ran in public today in a display of..." You better believe that the school district would have fired my a** over that.

As a small business owner, I'd have to say that if one of my employees did this, and it harmed my company in some way....I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably keep him/her on unless I felt my company was seriously threatened. Tell you what, though, that would be the first and only strike against that person- two such displays and I would certainly fire them- mainly because burning a religious book as a protest against a religion is stupid, anyway- talk to people who are Muslims or attend a "service"- knowledge is power- my best friend is from Iran and we have countless discussions about these types of things- very true that there are radical elements, but very, very overstated and exaggerated, especially regarding the Muslims in America.

 

This was in my hometown back in 2004:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-03-09-mosque-vandalism_x.htm

FBI investigates vandalism at Lubbock mosque
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Windows smashed. Pro-American and anti-Muslim slogans scrawled in black marker on walls and on a computer. Chairs broken in the women's worship hall. Money and electronic equipment stolen.
"All our Quran, our holy books, have never been thrown like this," Muhammad Chaudhry, a member of the Islamic Center of the South Plains, said as he walked through the vandalized building Monday.

Worshippers discovered the damage — estimated to be about $1,800 — Sunday when they arrived for morning prayers.

The graffiti included racial epithets and what investigators said were apparent references to the name of a gang depicted in a movie.

The FBI and local authorities believe two or more people broke into the mosque — the only one in the city and surrounding area — late Saturday or early Sunday, and have lifted fingerprints that they hope will lead them to suspects.

At least two sets of shoeprints also were found, Lubbock police said.

Investigators are looking into whether the break-in "was indeed a hate crime and not just vandalism," FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey said.

"That determination hasn't been made yet," she said. "If it was a hate crime, we would begin a full-fledged civil rights investigation. We do have some leads in the case, but I don't know if they've ID'd anyone as possibly being a suspect."

Chaudhry said mosque members hope the vandalism was not a hate crime.

"This town is so peaceful. These things should not be in this town," he said.

Mosque leaders will review security at the building but aren't afraid to continue worshipping in the building, Imam Mohamed El-Moctar said. He said authorities told him they found most of the stolen goods in nearby trash bins.

Late Monday, about 60 worshippers of faiths that included Islam, Catholicism, Methodist, Presbyterian and Jewish — all part of Lubbock's interfaith community — gathered at the mosque with their leaders and others to express their sorrow and their support.

Tibor P. Nagy, Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Guinea who is director of Texas Tech's International Cultural Center, said that most who adhere to a religion are peaceful and loving.

"Every single religion, unfortunately, has a small radical minority that is not interested in that," he said. "And it is the very people who did this act who represent the radical and the violent. So they twisted the truth backwards and showed themselves for what they are."

Gail Turtino, who formerly served on Lubbock's Community Relations Commission, said Lubbock needs to respond the way Billings, Mont., did in the mid-1990s when anti-Semitic violence sprang up.

"They said, 'Not in our town,'" she said. "That is what we have to do."

Many at the meeting said they will approach city leaders about the commission meeting regularly again. The commission has not met since last spring.

After the meeting, El-Moctar said he was very happy with the outpouring of support.

"Very kind people," he said. "This is the kind of people we want to live with."

Members said the mosque didn't experience anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The last crime to hit the mosque was six years ago, when neighbors noticed someone breaking into the building through the roof and called police, Chaudhry said.

Chaudhry said the mosque gets an occasional harassing phone call, but he described them as "not serious."

The one-story mosque, located in a modest residential area on the outskirts of the city, has about 700 members from the Lubbock area. It opened in 1981.

 

I would say he has the right to do so. But if it caused some nutjobs to vandalize my building, or if it affected my sales, damn right I'd have a problem with it. This is not something that has a black-and-white answer, by the way (although a number of Republicans prefer to see it that way). Did the person announce ahead of time he/she was going to do this? Was it done in isolation or in a group? How well do I know the person? I mean, this is extremist behavior, and I don't know if I want someone working under me who is an extremist- these individuals tend to cause more problems than they are worth.

Me personally? Probably wouldn't fire him/her if it was a one-time thing. If it was recurring, and if it affected my business- I have other employees to think about as well as my family. So- maybe. Again, I would probably sit down and talk with him/her about what he/she really wants to accomplish by this- there are much more effective ways to bring about change than burning something.

Unless you're burning weed. :grin:

 

While I would personally not consider burning books at political demonstrations, I am not sure his behavior would qualify as "extremist". But I understand what you are saying about troublemakers.

But note the key difference - you are a private employer, the guy's employer is a governmental entity. I would not dispute in any way that you could fire the guy. But it's a different picture because his employer is the state. I believe - and would like to hear MadMax' opinion about this, after he has now read the facts of the case, that he would/will be successful with a legal challenge to his firing.

 

I respect their opinion but it does not necessarily mean they're correct.

Has the NJ Transit retracted their decision or has a lawsuit been filed against them?

 

I assume the guy is getting some legal advice right now. I am curious myself.

 

So more ad-hominem attacks because you could not refute anything I posted. Bravo, you make basso look intelligent.

I would say they have done nothing to show how his First Amendment right was violated. Did NJ Transit stop him from expressing himself? They most certainly did not. They fired him because he was bad publicity, something that schools have done numerous times.

Hey look, more ad-hominem attacks from ATW because he is incapable of keeping an intellectual debate. It's no surprise that the majority of the people in the D&D think you're a bigoted imbecile. You continuously validate and affirm that belief. Good work!

 

You of all people whining about alleged ad hominem attacks?

 

You going to prove how NJ Transit violated this guy's First Amendment right? Or are you going to continue to babble and spew moronic rhetoric thinking you actually made a point?

 

I'll leave the proof to the guy's lawyers. I actually tried to explain it to you, but your blind hatred for anyone "insulting Islam" will not allow you to listen or to actually consider viewpoints that do not further your agenda, 1st amendment or not.

 

Every single person who says this guy's First Amendment right has been violated say the exact same thing: "you can't fire a guy for expressing his views", or "flag burning is not prohibited by the 1st Amendment, neither should Qur'an burning".

That's disingenuous, because you most certainly can fire a person for views they express and how they express them. And no one has prohibited this guy from burning the Qur'an. NJ Transit didn't stop him from expressing himself. They fired him for that expression because it was a matter of a public concern.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/publicemployees.htm

For someone who apparently studied law, you have no clue on basic civil liberties.

 

You have obviously not studied law. If you had, you would realize that even the link you googled and presented in your post supports my legal opinion on the issue.

Tell us please, what is your academic/professional background? What makes you so confident in your (wrong) opinions? The ability to google (and not understand what you googled)?

 

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/employpunishment.html

I suggest reading four over and over:


Testing Whether the Government has Violated the First Amendment Rights of Employees

1. Is the employee on the government payroll? (If not, the First Amendment generally will not apply and the employee will be left to contractual or statutory remedies (e.g., "whistleblower" law), if any.)

2. Has the employee been punished for his or her speech in a non-trivial way, such as being discharged, demoted, or transferred? (If not, the courts are unlikely to consider the First Amendment claim.)

3. Did the expression for which the employee was punished relate to a matter of "public concern?" (If not, "absent the most unusual circumstances" (Connick), the courts will not consider the claim. Courts should look at the "whole record" to determine whether the expression concerns a matter of interest to the general public. Whether expression relates to a matter of public concern does not depend upon how it is communicated--whether privately or publicly.)

4. If the government says that it had additional reasons for punishing the employee that do not relate to the employee's expression on matters of public concern, would those additional reasons have resulted in the same punishment that the employee suffered? (Unless the expression on a matter of public concern was a "but for" cause of the punishment--but for that expression the employee would not have been punished as he or she was--the employee loses on the First Amendment claim. The government, however, has the burden of proof of showing that the other reasons would have produced the same punishment. Doyle)

5. If the employee's speech did relate to a matter of public concern, is the government's ability to "efficiently provide services" nonetheless adversely affected in a substantial way? (If so, the employee is out of luck.)

6. With respect to political affiliation of public employees, the Court asks whether party affiliation is an "appropriate requirement" for the position, taking into account such factors as whether the employee makes important policy decisions or is in a position to thwart the policy directives of superiors. If not, the First Amendment prohibits consideration of political affiliation in either hiring, promotion, or discharge decisions (Branti, Rutan).

 

All the boxes are checked - thank you for posting this to further prove that the guy's dismissal violated the first amendment. You obviously did not understand point 4 if you thought it actually supports your wrong opinion.

Out of curiosity, what is your academic/professional background? You seem to think you understand the law, but you are clearly not a lawyer.

MadMax? I know you know that I am right on this issue (and you corrected yourself after you saw that the guy was a state employee), and you are reading this thread.

 

Looks like Hydhypedplaya does not want to admit that he was wrong on this issue. I saw him online for quite a long time yesterday, but he did not come back to post on this thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/19/can-speech-be-limited-for-public-workers

Interesting contributions - 5 legal scholars and one representative of the "Muslim Public Affairs Council" (whatever that is).

While the "Muslim Public Affairs Council" dude just says "waaaah evil Quran burner", all the legal scholars come to the result that the guy's firing violated the constitution.

One of them, former federal prosecutor and now professor and associate dean at George Washington University's school of law, explicitly says:

As I stated before, I agree.

 

Quran burner didn't get fired in a crowded theater

Published: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 2:28 AM Updated: Tuesday, September 21, 2010, 11:52 AM
Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger


If there is one cliché I could ban from the English language, it would be that saying about shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

It originated with Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was an excellent writer but not so hot of a Supreme Court justice. As H.L. Mencken wrote of Holmes, "He had a considerable talent for epigram, and like any other man who possesses it was not shy about exercising it."

That talent led Holmes, whose father was a famous poet, to create that colorful image of a crowded theater. But the image had no bearing on the case at hand, which involved the prosecution of a person who was offering an opinion on the constitutionality of a disputed law. That opinion, like all opinions, was not a statement of fact. And thus it had nothing in common with the theoretical act of making a false statement about danger in a theater.
No matter. The cliché entered the language as a sort of mantra for morons. I saw it employed by quite a few people defending the decision by the Christie administration to sack NJ Transit employee Derek Fenton. Fenton was fired after he burned a Quran in Manhattan during a demonstration against that proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero.
Unfortunately for the administration, the Supreme Court has ruled that the act of burning an object such as a flag — and presumably a book — is a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment. The court has also ruled that public employees can’t be canned for political expression in their private lives.
Lawyers across the spectrum are taking Fenton’s side, from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union to Gov. Chris Christie’s fellow Morris County Republican, conservative state Assemblyman Michael Carroll.
"Unless there’s more to this than meets the eye, it’s a slam dunk. He can’t possibly lose," Carroll said of Fenton, a Bergen County resident who worked as a train coordinator for NJ Transit.
Not only that, but Fenton’s likely to be awarded back pay and attorney’s fees, said Carroll.
Carroll noted liberals have a stake in the outcome of this case as well.
"If this guy had been fired for wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt in his off-duty hours, the left would be all over that," said Carroll.
And deservedly so. In that instance, though, I suspect it would be some knucklehead on the right who would invoke the "fire in a crowded theater" cliché. Perhaps in that case the argument would be that the wearer of such a shirt, were he to stroll down Bergenline Avenue in Hudson County, would be provoking violence if he were to encounter a crowd of Castro-haters.
But my friends in the Cuban-American National Foundation would not be within their rights if they beat the guy up. The law places the burden entirely on us Castro-haters, as citizens of a free country, to avoid attacking those with whom we disagree.
Somebody tell Stephen Breyer. At the height of the Quran crisis, the Supreme Court justice was asked by talk-show host George Stephanopoulos whether free-speech protections had been weakened in the internet era. The host cited a fear that a Quran-burning in America might lead "to riots and killings in Afghanistan."
Breyer responded by invoking his predecessor in offering putative limits on the First Amendment.
"Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. … Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the ‘being trampled to death?’ "
The implication was that the sort of people who trample other people to death could cause an American court to restrict free expression here. After a bout of bad publicity, Breyer went on Larry King to make it clear that was not what he intended. Quran-burning seems to have the same protection as flag-burning, he said.
As for Christie, he’s getting bad publicity as well. All over the internet, conservatives are concluding he’s not one of them.
Christie’s crew has clammed up, so I have no idea what led them to start this conflagration in the court of public opinion. But I have a question: Why do people in power feel such an urge to shut other people up?
I have no idea. But Holmes gets the blame for giving them an excuse to do so.
Pre-emptive moron perspective alert: If you are thinking of making a comment comparing some private employer's power to fire employees at will to that of NJ Transit, please refrain from doing so. As I noted above, public employers are constitutionally restrained from discriminating on the basis of political views.
If you wish to argue that the American rail system should be privatized, then you can argue that employees can be fired at will. And I will be in total agreement with you. But that's a different, and far better, situation than what we have here in New Jersey.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2010/09/quran_burner_didnt_get_fired_i.html