The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #131989   Message #2983995
Posted By: Emma B
10-Sep-10 - 12:17 PM
Thread Name: BS: Burning Korans
Subject: RE: BS: Burning Korans
As I mentioned kat, it is reported that the occasion apparently went pretty much unnoticed at the time

Here is one recent reference

"One of those angry at a Florida preacher's plans to mark Sept. 11 by setting fire to copies of the Quran is Shirley Phelps Roper, a leader of the Westboro Baptist Church.

While she joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Gen. David Petraeus, the White House, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and many more, Phelps-Roper, Fred Phelps' lawyer daughter, is hardly a voice for religious tolerance.

Her irritation Wednesday was not that the Rev. Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center's planned bonfire would offend Muslims worldwide and probably increase the danger to American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's that in 2008 she and her father's Topeka flock set fire to a Quran in plain view on a Washington, D.C., street and nobody seemed to care.

"We did it a long time before this guy," Phelps-Roper said by telephone from a street corner in downtown Chicago, scene of the latest Westboro picket — against Jews this time, not gays.

The difference could be that in 2008 many news media outlets had decided to ignore the group's routine of spewing hatred at funerals of fallen American soldiers.

So when Fred Phelps, calling Muhammad a "pedophilic gigolo," went online and invited people to attend the burning, most stayed away."

By Donald Bradley and Rick Montgomery | The Kansas City Star Via McClatchy News:


It has also been reported that Fred Phelps posted on his website that he already burned the Koran in 2008 and that he will do so again if the Florida preacher backs down.
I confess I couldn't bring myself to confirm this by hitting on his website

"In the 90's, when Westboro Church began launching their now infamous anti-gay pickets, pushing their "God Hates Fags" website and anti-homosexual views, they were able to get easy media access due to the novelty of the events.
But as the media began to ignore them, the church had to escalate their actions, leading to pickets of military events, allegedly pro-gay schools and art events, and even the funerals of the Minnesota bridge collapse victims.

Even then, few media would cover their schemes, leaving them mostly to themselves….

But it's become a much more hostile environment these days, with both racial and religious intolerance escalating -- an environment that plays perfectly for the agenda of thinly disguised hate groups."

From Care2 website

Shirley Phelps-Roper says she thinks Jones will fold under the building pressure.
"They'll browbeat him and he'll back down at the last minute," she said.
"He's an apologist. He doesn't serve God."