Terry Jones, the lunatic cult leader from Gainesville, Florida who has recently begun a crusade to burn the Quran in public, is a disgusting man. His actions are reprehensible, ignorant, and hate-filled; that he calls himself any sort of Christian is an insult to the millions of men and women of the Christian faith who believe in peace, tolerance, and understanding. The world can and must strongly condemn his outrageous, misguided lies about Islam, and his followers--all fifty of them--should be persuaded to renounce his idiotic desecrations.
Terry Jones is, in a word, a monster. But he is also an American. And however stupid and painful and shocking and disgraceful his acts of expression are, we must not criminalize them merely because we disagree with them.