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In an ill-considered, knee-jerk response to pressure put on it by CAIR, PACE University has called the police and had arrested, a student, for putting a Koran in a toilet. This, when flag-burning is protected free speech, and desecration of Christian religious symbols is called "art" and put in museums. The public outrage from Americans who love free speech is threatening to turn this into a firestorm of public outrage directed against PACE. The topic is red-hot on LGF and is looking like a gathering blogswarm, with Google showing 110 blog posts on the subject in the past 12 hours. It appears likely that this subject will dominate talk radio tomorrow.
Earlier today I emailed this to the President of PACE University, Stephen J. Friedman:
Dear Mr. Friedman,
PACE has called the police to prosecute Mr. Shmulevich in response to pressure put on PACE by CAIR. Please reconsider. PACE is about to be on the receiving end of a massive public outcry from Americans outraged that PACE has, in error and without specifically intending it, launched a legal attack on U.S. freedom of speech.
To see the depth of the passion of Americans who love our free speech and our way of life, I strongly advise you to read the comments on this post (link) on a site that has tens of thousands of visits a day. There are already over 500 comments as I compose this email.
You are unintentionally making PACE the center of a firestorm of public outrage. And PACE is on the wrong side - standing against freedom of speech, which should be the top priority of a great University such as yours.
Act now to prevent a debacle, and massive international damage to PACE's reputation. Stand up for Mr. Shmulevich's right to free speech. Drop the charges.
I included the first 460 comments from the second LGF post on the subject, including:
#1 pbird 7/29/2007 8:20:06 am PDT
You described it perfectly Charles. I am speechless. So frightening.
...#3 m 7/29/2007 8:20:30 am PDTAnd Mr. Shmulevich needs a paypal account. This is ########.
#4 BabbaZee 7/29/2007 8:20:56 am PDT
re: #3 m
Amen.
#5 newsjunkie_ky 7/29/2007 8:21:48 am PDT
This scares the sh*t out of me. What next?
#6 NinoBrown79 7/29/2007 8:22:08 am PDT
A koran in the toilet and the guy gets thrown in jail? Is this America or Iran?
#7 mrsoc 7/29/2007 8:22:44 am PDT
Well, are we going to help him, or not?
#8 albemarle 7/29/2007 8:22:46 am PDT
How long before he gets his own fatwa ?
#9 Cartman 7/29/2007 8:22:56 am PDT
This is gonna be really interesting.
#10 christheprofessor 7/29/2007 8:23:18 am PDT
I can't seem to find any instance of PU's (somehow, that abbreviation seems so appropriate) having arrested somebody for burning an American flag....
#11 Roger 7/29/2007 8:23:37 am PDT
Will do, Charles.
I can't find which campus?
If anyone knows a good timing and if they are going to go, let me know.
#12 m 7/29/2007 8:23:41 am PDT
Who the f' was he harassing? The plumbers? Aggrevated harassment at that!
#13 Armigerous 7/29/2007 8:23:55 am PDT
From what I understand about the case,the Koran in question belonged to the university and not to him personally....can anybody verify that?..that would seem to be the crux of the problem
#14 BabbaZee 7/29/2007 8:24:11 am PDT
re: #7 mrsoc
Absolutely we are going to help him.
Any way we can.
...#16 distwalker 7/29/2007 8:24:21 am PDTYou can burn an American flag and get police protection.
You can create an image of the Virgin Mary in elephant dung and get it in a New York museum.
You can create performance art in which you insert a crucifix in your anus on stage and get a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
You can burn a pile of bibles and get an article in the New York Times.
One Koran in the toilet results in two felony charges?
People, this is the center of the god damned storm. This is where we make our stand. If we can't win this one for this man, we have lost the war.
Institutions like PACE respond to pressure from the public. So far, CAIR is pressuring them, and they are responding. If they start hearing directly from us, demanding the protection of free speech, and the destruction of nascent double standards for Islam, the situation will change.
#1
#2Hi A.M.,
Yes. When you can get arrested for dunking a Koran in the toilet - but not a Bible - then there is a dangerous double standard that threatens freedom of speech for all of us.
#3Wow! I’m glad I saw this article. I was going to barbeque pork over a pile of smoldering Qurans this weekend. I think I’ll switch to steak instead.
#4Firstly, I don't advocate stuffing anything down a toilet and I don't condone the sophomoric behavior that was demonstrated by this young man. It was inappropriate behavior. An apology and restitution of damaged property by the offender would have been in order following a strong warning by the college.
However, when my Constitution is being shredded, then I do become incensed. When we are bending over so far to placate minority ideologies and opinions by instituting double-standards, then I become upset.
It is not worthy of a felony.
on the other hand...
It is a shameful that many Jews and Christians do not value their holy books and icons to the extent that the Muslims do. After seeing how we allow ours to be perverted, and many times at the public expense, Muslims are fearful for theirs; I respect and understand that.
The examples of free speech cited above by various commentators are disgusting and nothing to be proud about. Using those to illustrate and justify the concept of free speech is objectionable to me. I wonder how our founding fathers would have reacted to them? I don't imagine that they would consider those examples to be free speech, but deviant behavior.
The reason Judeo-Christian society is failing is that we do not make a stand to protect the core values and representations of our God, country, and culture.
How did we allow this to happen?
#5You're raising great questions, A.M. It seems to me that a lot of the examples of free speech cited in the article are done expressly for the purpose of misusing the first amendment so as to be obnoxious.
It's possible that this will be termed a Hate Crime rather than Freedom of Speech.
It should be an interesting exercise for their law school.