In the case of Jones and his church in Gainesville, the Council on American-Islamic Relations decided that the timing of his Koran travesty was simply too hot to ignore. Even though the group regularly ignores the videos that it receives of people burning, shooting or ripping apart Islam\u2019s holy book, CAIR decided to issue a July 19 press release announcing its own protest of \u201cInternational Burn a Koran Day.\u201d\u009d The group handed out free copies of the Koran.<\/p>\n
The word was officially out and the media storm kept growing as angry reactions \u201d\u201d from Arab streets to the White House \u201d\u201d rolled into the world\u2019s newsrooms.<\/p>\n
Lost in the din were the quiet, measured words of many religious leaders who tried to walk a knife\u2019s edge of logic in their public statements.<\/p>\n
For starters, they had to note the painful fact that the Dove World Outreach Center was an independent Pentecostal congregation and its members were responsible to no higher religious authority than their own pastor. Thus, there was no one who could stop this event, other than public officials who, in order to do so, would have had to trample the rights of Jones and his flock.<\/p>\n