Associated Press/Washington Post
September 8, 2010
Florida pastor Terry Jones will undoubtedly offend and infuriate many people around the world if he follows through on a plan to burn Muslim Qurans at his church this weekend.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution will protect him, in the same way it allows the Ku Klux Klan to burn crosses and for protesters to torch the American flag.
The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear in several landmark rulings that speech deemed offensive to many people, even a majority, cannot be suppressed by the government unless it is clearly directed to intimidate someone or incite violence, legal experts said.
"Are you just saying something or are you trying to incite violence? That kind of becomes the dividing line," said Ruthann Robson, a constitutional law professor at West Virginia University. "You can speak, and express an opinion, and do it in a symbolic way by burning something, but you can't do it in a way that would incite violence."
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