Two years ago when the controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn Korans, I had a passionate argument with a friend who strongly supported the gesture as a protest against the ideology contained within its covers. While I supported Jones’s right to burn the book as a protected act of free speech, I was (and remain) adamantly opposed to book burning as a way to resolve the clash of ideas. Whether it’s the Koran or Mein Kampf or, ironically, Fahrenheit 451, censorship never works and smacks of intellectual Nazism. Controversial books shouldn’t be burned or banned–they should be read and debated.
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