is it a hate crime to criticise islam on this site? what if i hypothethically placed bacon in a koran and let muslims use their imagination for what that would look like? thought crime? will it soon be against sharia/federal law to protest islam on this site? using bacon imagery as a prop for my protest.

Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at April 13, 2007 9:32 AM

So, this was pronounced as a "hate" crime. The logical absurdity of that is only paled by the fact that no one knows who did it. Without being able to identify a perpetrator, guilty of littering at best, what is the purpose of drawing any attention to this occurence at all?

Additionally, since no one knows who did it, how can one confidently state that it was not a set-up? It appears to be another probe, the foundation for proposed legislation to hinder those who might speak out against Islam and secure preferential treatment for the local mosque and it's community.

Posted by: awake at April 13, 2007 9:59 AM

what if one of my pigs escaped from the pen, and ran into the nearest mosque or islamic "education" center? and it proceeded to eat a koran, would i get prosecuted for a hate crime?

Posted by: leonthepigfarmer at April 13, 2007 10:02 AM

Just for fairness, I will place a Bible with a whole package of bacon, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of orange juice at the doorsteps of the local homeless shelter....

.....The Muslims hate their "religion" and good food when served together...The act of peace for the homeless will give them good food and a good book to read....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 13, 2007 10:05 AM

If there was any crime, then it was pigophobia. Placing bacon in the koran, which says pigs are unclean, is showing contempt for piggies.

Posted by: Celsius at April 13, 2007 1:00 PM

Have you heard about attack on "Wear a Hijab Day" campus organizer? Maybe it's hate crime and I'm not going to argue with that. But because it's a crime doesn't mean I cannot argue about the victim's activities.

What would happen to organizer of "Wear a crucifix Day" (or "Don't wear a hijab") campus in Palestine or Sirya, I wonder? After all, religion is a private matter and shouldn't be pushed this way. Having such an event in Western country is not a multiculturalism. It's dhimmitude.

Attack on "Wear a Hijab Day" campus organizer

Posted by: vn at April 13, 2007 1:13 PM

Just a datapoint. I live near the ‘rolling a pig’s head into the Mosque during prayers’ incident. The verdict:

No Federal Hate Crime committed. The perpetrator has to stay away for a year. I think he got sensitivity training.

Let the good times roll.

Posted by: pez at April 13, 2007 2:03 PM

Are you an anti-semite for eating bread on Passover?
Fight dhimmitude and visit http://www.masada1234.blogspot.com

Posted by: bar kochba at April 13, 2007 5:22 PM

As I said, this is a "hate crime", with no actual crime involved.

As such it is a pure thought police action.

It's a straight up attempt to criminalize hate itself, or at least hate of mohammedans or the koran.

Posted by: joeblough at April 13, 2007 10:03 PM

Well, I like Christine's conclusion, and even her approach, but, unfortunately, she is faulty in her logic.

She fails to recognize that leaving the Koran, or any other object, at the mosque, is a trespass to property. This is both a crime and a civil wrong in American law. The perpetrator can be arrested AND sued for any damages that are caused.

Of course, in this case, the damages are strictly nominal, and, at best are probably limited to the cost of removal and clean-up. This may not even be sufficient, depending on local law, to get the case heard. Even so, the defendant is unknown.

The criminal charge could stand, depending again on local (state) law. Some states require a warning or the posting of certain notices in a certain way, etc. In theory, a crime has been committed. In any event, it is a misdemeanor. Calling this a "hate crime" is not so much a LEGAL conclusion, as it is a POLITICAL position.

It's all in the nomenclature. The left has known this for a long time.

Posted by: texan at April 13, 2007 10:28 PM

The only detail of this case that makes it difficult is that the item was left on someone's private property.

If someone leaves any kind of undesired message on your private property, don't you have a right to have such deliveries stopped? Of course that doesn't make leaving such messages a hate "crime." It's more a kind of nuisance harrassment behavior that could, if continued despite warnings, be punishable with a fine, or reasonably be criminalized if the unwanted messages threatened or implied violence.

I think it salutary for Muslims to receive protests, critical messages and satirical insults, since their religion in many respects is hideously -- yes, hideously -- totalitarian and violent, yet I also think the private property rights and respect for law that, in one form or another, are integral to any free society, must be protected.

Posted by: traeh at April 14, 2007 12:23 AM

I'll slightly amend my above comment. Since Muslims in too many cases use totalitarian rather than Jeffersonian methods, perhaps it would be ethical and permissible -- even if not always quite legal -- to send Muslims such messages, though only if the messages do not threaten or carry out violence or damage property other than one's own. In other words, nuisance behavior and harrassment, within very strict boundaries, seem justifiable forms of resistance against the totalitarian threat of Islam and its tactics of media-intimidation, terror, deception, slow demographic conquest and infiltration. Especially if the mass of "moderate" Muslims continues to remain mostly passive despite the violence and threats emanating from their own communities, the belligerant and ongoingly violent behavior of Muslims in nations all over the globe, and the fact that Muslim-majority nations, according to data and statistics gathered by human rights groups, are on the whole the most backward nations in the world in terms of civil liberties, religious freedoms, and political rights.

Posted by: traeh at April 14, 2007 12:44 AM

texan

It's not a bad argument but I don't think I buy it.

To assert trespass one has to be able to say that somebody who doesn't belong on private property entered that property.

I don't think it applies here for 2 reasons:

1 - A mosque, while private property, is not, as a place of "worship", assumed to be closed to the public unless there is some posting that says "members only" or some such thing.

Anybody can walk into the local church. Why not the local mosque? At what point does entry constitute trespass?

2 - We don't know who left the scary forbidden booga-booga-bacon on the doorstep. For all we know it could have been the preacher himself pulling off a bit of Paliwood victim-mongering.

With all due respect I still don't see a crime here. Hate maybe, certainly dislike, but no crime.

And for all we know it's the local mohammedan poobah hating us and expressing it by posing as the victim of a "hate crime".

I'll tell you what might be construed as a "hate crime" (a category I regard as completely empty, meaningless and illegitimate). To go up to that mosque in broad daylight, drag the preacher out by the scruff of his neck in front of his whole congregation, and beat him till his own mother wouldn't recognize him -- while the police were all mysteriously otherwize occupied.

That BTW is something which I believe happens with some frequency in mohammedan countries to the devotees of other religions, but which for some reason doesn't seem to happen to mohammedans much.

But let me ask a question. If somebody is standing in front of a crowd of approving people, encouraging and inciting them to track you down and kill you, and you decide to walk in and beat him down, is that a crime?, or is that simply self-defense?.

Posted by: joeblough at April 14, 2007 1:22 AM

It's an "insult" and "offensive to Muslims", but, since no particular segment of America pays much (or anywhere near enough) attention to Mohammedans, or to the dismal dogmas of Islam, this act can hardly be considered a "hate crime". Or even much of a "threat".

A tasteless (or tasty) prank, at worse.

I would rather have a slab of bacon in my house than a Koran.

And I'd rather have a sinkhole in my town than a mosque.

And mosquitos than Muslims.

(Even with the risk of West Nile disease.)

At least we can treat for those bloodsuckers.

I suspect an imam was looking for some p.c. publicity.

And to see how dhimmi the locals are.

Plenty.

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 14, 2007 2:00 AM

well considering my Koran has been written in and they say infidels are not supposed to have a Koran I can say big deal this sound like another set up like the flying inmans incident or Koran here in the West is just another book until Muslims give the same courtesy to the Bible and Torah in my opinion they have no right to cry crocodile tears over Koran being defaced in the West just look at what the savages did in the church in Bethlehem they used the Church as a toilet and use the Bible as toilet paper and then there's a giant Buddha in Afghanistan Islamic Taliban destroyed as a graven image never mind to some it would still be a holy site so until they learn respect for other religions and their holy books and sites they get exactly what they deserve

Posted by: godisnotallha at April 14, 2007 3:30 AM

Saying things that can be hurtful is not illegal. The first amendment guarantees me the right to express myself. Should I feel it necessary to say that the Koran is a book full of errors and discrepancies, that the Koran preaches hate and disdain for all things not muslim, that the Koran abuses women and their rights as human beings, then that is my god given right as an american.

Muslims have no problem calling jews pigs and christians apes. Is their good right. And should I have the feeling that they and their god forsaken false religion are unimportant to me, then that is my right.

It would be in bad taste to stick bacon in a torah and leave it on the steps to a synagogue, but the act itself would not make God's word any less holy or viable. And you wouldn't see jews screaming bloody murder, as the muslims just love to do.

With all those millions and millions of peace-loving muslims always protesting, I sometimes wonder if they ever go to work. But of course they do. They step onto airplanes as Imans and say things that only terrorists would say, in the hope of getting thrown off the plane so that they can launch and legal and media circus. And the first amendment guarantees my right to say that such Imans are completely full of shit.

Posted by: bonncaruso at April 14, 2007 4:40 PM

In the Clarksville incident, the Koran was actually left on the common sidewalk shared by several buildings in a strip mall. It's not clear that this sidewalk where the Koran was left is in fact the Islamic Center's property. Perhaps this depends on how the strip mall treats common areas as part of the Islamic Center's rental agreement.

See the video at http://wkrn.com/node/88398#top

Posted by: Christine at April 14, 2007 7:55 PM

After reading the stories I am not sure if the Koran was left on the sidewalk or the actual doorstep. I have always been led to believe that the sidewalk didn't belong to either a house or a business or a church for that matter. It supposedly belongs to either the city if it abutts the street or to the owner of the entire mall. At least where I live that is how it works.

In any case, I am getting a bit tired of hearing all the whining from the Muslims for this or that offense being given here in the US. We have a Constitution (sorry but that includes all people and not just certain ones) that gives each and every one of us the right of free speech. It does not protect anyone from being insulted or hearing things they may not like. If it is deemed okay to burn a US flag, then putting bacon in a Koran has to also come under that heading. Terrible waste of bacon however. We are coming perilously close to what is happening in Europe. The shutting down of any talk about Islam at all. How can anyone form an opinion if one cannot even discuss the issue? They will never stop me from speaking out. Not now or ever.

When certain Muslim nations stop murdering people of other faiths, then maybe they will be listened to. However, I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. Islam is an exceedingly intolerant religion and still stuck back in either the 8th or 15th centuries. Way past time for a reformation....if they would even have the courage to try.

Posted by: TeamNfdL at April 15, 2007 3:04 AM

It is than hate crime as it fit certain legal standard. First leaveing than Loran with bacon inside is showing criminal disrespect for the muslim
civil right in america. Liberal and slander of Muhannad for calling him a pedicalfill first that statement is false he marry her when she was 12 year old the legal age of marraige at that time and place
girls at that age got marry in europe at that at that age also. The local DA reach this legal conclude based on the fact and the law. The First Amendment doesnot apply here at all. Innus was fire in sprike of the first amendment.

Posted by: DefenderofIslam at April 15, 2007 8:00 AM

If this was a hate crime, then many art galleries around the country have surely also committed hate crimes. Remember that fine piece of work "Piss Christ"?

Posted by: Obelisk1 at April 15, 2007 9:34 AM

I suppose that I'll be damned for the following comment, but behavior deemed to be an intimidation does constitute a "hate crime" under federal statute based upon race, religion, or sexual orientation. This is a matter of legal fact.

It doesn't matter if the koran was left at the mosque or in a public place of transit. Such behavior is illegal and alienates consituents from their congressional and local leaders who will not have any political stance to support such behavior.

We should instead promote political pressure upon our lawmakers to oppose sharia law, violent jihad and dhimmitude. Political and economic isolation of local mosque communities and governments that promote or support these political defects should be aggressively pursued.

Posted by: raja at April 15, 2007 10:07 PM

"Liberal and slander of Muhannad for calling him a pedicalfill first that statement is false he marry her when she was 12 year old the legal age of marraige at that time and place
girls at that age got marry in europe at that at that age also"

Posted by: DefenderofIslam

........take the time to learn about your slavemaster:::;

Muhammad's personal life became the picture of hedonism and excess, all justified by frequent “revelations.” According to his biographers, he became fat and lived on the enormous share of possessions taken from conquered tribes. In the span of a dozen years, he married eleven women and had access to an array of sex slaves.

When he wanted a woman, even if she were the wife of another man, his own daughter-in-law, or

a child as young as 6,----------(Muhammad was a pedophile...as young as 6)

he was able to justify his lust and inevitable consummation with an appeal to Allah’s revealed will for his sex life - which was then preserved forever in the Qur'an, to be faithfully memorized by future generations for him whom it has no possible relevance.

Posted by: exsgtbrown at April 17, 2007 2:10 PM