Quran Tearing Planned For Cincinnati's Fountain Square: Islam-Bashers Say They'll Show Up Oct. 7



Is Tearing Less Worse Than Burning?



CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The local protest will coincide with the date the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, although nobody seems to have noticed the connection.  Randall Terry, the anti-abortion protester who founded Operation Rescue, says his followers plan to read and destroy passages from the Quran this week in at least seven U.S. cities,  including Cincinnati.  Terry calls the protest "Hear Muhammad Speak,"  and it is scheduled to start at the proposed mosque near Ground Zero on Wednesday.  A day later the protest is supposed to show up on Fountain Square at the noon hour.  Nobody is sure what will happen, if anything.  Terry's website lists this information about the local organizer:

"Contact: David Smith
Email: david_smith@milacron.com
Thursday, October 7, 2010
12PM -1PM
Meet at: Fountain Square
Fountain Square
W 5th St
Cincinnati, OH 45202"

Terry has an instructional video on YouTUBE that shows how to print-out and crumple up passages from the Quran. Organizing materials say that the the quotations are words "in which Muhammad calls for the murder, beheading, torture, execution and more of Christians, Jews, and Muslim 'apostates' who leave Islam."  Terry has turned into a fringe player on the far out Christian Right.  He seems to be trying to jump back into the headlines by piggybacking off the Florida preacher's threat to burn the Quran.  Some would say he's looking for a second act.  Terry says:  "One of our goals is to urge Americans to study the words and deed of Muhammad.  Americans are rightly concerned about Sharia law; we must connect the dots between the Quran, Muhammad's actions, and Sharia law."  Additional details are at http://www.terrycast.com/; you have to click on the headline Hear Muhammad Speak.

Terry says October 7 is an important date in Christian history because on that date in 1571 the naval battle of Lepanto took place.  He also says October 7 is the Catholic Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.  In the battle  of Lepanto, a fleet from the Holy League -- an alliance of Mediterranean nations that included Spain, Venice and the Papacy -- defeated the Turks, who were bidding to occupy Italy and Rome.  Wikipedia has an entry about the battle, which apparently was the last big naval engagement involving fighting ships powered by rows of oarsmen.  Terry doesn't mention that Oct. 7 is also the day the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, starting the longest war in American history, an event meant as reprisal for Al Qaeda's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  Since the fighting started, at  least 1,239 Americans have lost their lives in that war.