Dymphna at Gates of Vienna has posted a terrific take by Christine of the 910 Group Blog on the Tennessee bacon-in-the-Qur’an “hate crime”:
1. The Koran “” simply a book under our laws, rather than “Islam’s revealed text,” and therefore not subject to the special treatment required by sharia law “” belonged to whoever put it on the steps. So no theft or defacement of someone else’s property was involved. If I had left a Bible on their steps, would that have been a hate crime? Or a Koran from Yemen, not accepted by the Wahhabi cult?
2. Leaving a Koran on a property”s steps “” again, just a book like any other, under our law rather than sharia law “” does not vandalize that property. Maybe you can define it as littering, but “hate crime littering” seems a bit of a dhimmitude stretch when it’s a single book and two pieces of bacon, neatly placed inside the book.
3. Writing in a book, including a Torah, New Testament, Bible, Lolita, The Pentagon Papers, the Yellow Pages or the Koran (again, just a book under any laws other than sharia) is permitted under the First Amendment. Writing an expletive in a book is permitted under the First Amendment. Writing that Mohammed was a pedophile is permitted under the First Amendment, and is also amply documented by both Islamic and other scholars of the Koran.
[Scriptural Evidence] Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64: Sahih Bukhari [the most venerated and authentic Islamic source]
Narrated “˜Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
4. Bacon is not illegal in Tennessee, and putting bacon in a book is not illegal in Tennessee. It’s a waste of good bacon, but it’s not illegal.
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Where was the underlying crime that must exist for this to be a “hate” crime, under U.S. or Tennessee laws? Or was the underlying crime one that exists only under sharia law, followed with meticulous political correctness by the Clarksville police in reporting it as a hate crime? Will leaving a book on the steps of a mosque become criminal trespass, in order to find some underlying crime to make it “hateful” under the National Incident Based Reporting System (pdf format) of the Department of Justice? The methodology for gathering hate crime statistics uses 3 categories of crimes: against people, against property and against society. Since this was not a crime against property or people, under U.S. and state laws, should we assume that the Clarksville police department has found it to be a crime against society under sharia law?
Or are we in the never-never land of searching for or inventing underlying crimes, to criminalize hostile and critical speech, so that it can be prosecuted as a hate crime?
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Until we determine otherwise, assume that Clarksville, Tennessee is operating under sharia law regarding the First Amendment….