Please Explain The Difference To Me

Daniel Greenfield at Solomonia sums up my confusion at the reaction to the proposed Cordoba Center versus the reaction to some dude wanting to burn the Koran.

In the weeks leading up to the anniversary, the media had been sanctimoniously lecturing Americans that their sensitivities regarding Ground Zero were irrelevant in the face of a Muslim desire to put up a massive and completely unnecessary Islamic complex in the area. Constitutional freedoms, real or imagined, trumped any sensitivities. But when a Gainesville pastor proposed returning a couple of copies of the Koran back to the environment by way of lighter fluid, suddenly freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and all that other stuff created by dead white men before the age of Walter Kronkite and CNN, were irrelevant in face of Muslim sensitivities.

By the way I don't give a shit about the center being built two blocks near Ground Zero. Do I think it's distasteful and wrong for someone who proclaims to want to "build bridges" and then do something that offends a whole lot of people? Yup. But there is nothing I can do about it because it's their right as Americans, no matter how much I disagree with them, to do so. But so is the right of this idiot pastor to burn those books. Do I disagree with him and find it insulting and stupid? Yup. But just like the Mosque being build in NYC, that is his right as an American, to be offensive as he wants and exercise his religious freedom. And no it's not like Kristalnacht, last time I checked he is not going into Mosques, and burning their Korans and the US government is not sponsoring the burning. Ugh.