by Klaus Rohrich
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The FBI is investigating the willful destruction of a Holy Bible in Chattanooga, TN as a possible hate crime. It appears two Tennessee men went out, purchased a Bible, shot it repeatedly with an assault rifle and threw the desecrated scripture on the doorstep of a Presbyterian church in downtown Chattanooga. The two men recorded their actions on video and then posted them to the web site MySpace.com.
The right Rev. J. W. "Willie" Preston of the Chattanooga Chapter of the Coalition of american Independent Revivalists (CaIR) lodged a formal complaint with the FBI, requesting that the act be investigated as a possible hate crime.
FBI agent Tim Burke announced that an investigation into the matter has been launched with a view toward charging those responsible with a hate crime.
The video, entitled "Kill the Bible" was posted to the social networking web site a month ago and is believed to be at least a year old, said Rev. Preston, who is the spokesperson for CaIR.
a man who identifies himself as "mully88" posted the offending video to the MySpace.com site. The video shows the man purchasing a Holy Bible at a bookstore and taking it to a wooded area where the book was shot repeatedly with what appeared to be an assault rifle and was then taken to the Chattanooga church where it was thrown to the ground outside the church's main doors.
CaIR's legal director, W. S. "Bubba" Williams complained that the desecration of the Holy Scriptures was comparable to burning a cross. "By throwing a bullet-riddled bible at the church, we believe the perpetrators went beyond the limits of free speech by taking part in an overt act of religious intimidation."
The FBI expects that charges against the defilers of the Holy Scriptures are pending.
The above news story is true in every detail, except one. The book that was shot was not a Bible, but a Koran and it was left in front of a mosque instead of a church. If this story sounds ridiculous, it's because it is ridiculous.
The complainants, the Council on american Islamic Relations (CaIR), want to deprive us of our First amendment right to free speech by inferring that a crime was committed. The only crime that I could possibly see in this incident is littering as the Koran was the property of the individual who purchased it and what he chooses to do with it is his business. Dumping the ruined book in front of the mosque amounts to littering. Nothing more.
It's interesting to note the curious juxtaposition of this story with the story that Judi McLeod reported on Monday where Christian church goers were assaulted and threatened with death by masked men last Sunday as they attempted to attend church service in Jackson, Mississippi. The assailants allegedly broke automobile windows and physically assaulted worshippers who attempted to enter the St. James Episcopal Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church.
apparently these crimes were committed in the presence of Jackson city police who refused to protect the worshippers.
The outrageous irony in these events is that the FBI and the U.S. Justice Departments have agreed to investigate CaIR's complaints, while the Christians who were deprived of their civil right to attend church are getting no help from the authorities.
There is something dreadfully wrong with this picture.
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