American Civil Liberties Union

The Dove World Outreach Center plans to commemorate the September 11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Quran in a presumably sincere, but woefully misguided, belief that America is at war with the Islamic faith.

Burning books conjures up images of a time when Nazi brutality against a religious minority was state-sanctioned policy. The community will surely respond as suggested by University of Florida President Bernard Machen; by condemning post-9/11 intolerance of Muslims and people of Arab and south Asian descent and reaffirming a commitment to religious and ethnic diversity. Such a reaffirmation is urgently needed at this sad period in American history, when Islamophobia (really, anti-Muslim bigotry) may be becoming mainstream political rhetoric.