Religious Nut Tries To Burn Quran In Amarillo

The crackpot preacher, Terry Jones, in Gainesville (Florida) decided not to hold his big Quran burning yesterday.   I think he expected to get a lot of support from other christians and was surprised by the huge negative feedback he received from nearly everyone.   He first said he was not going through with the proposed book-burning because the New York imam had agreed to move the muslim community center further away from the "ground zero" site.

But the media exposed that lie.   They learned the imam in New York had not even talked with Jones and was not moving anything.   Now Jones says he is backing off the book-burning because he just wanted to make the point that "there is an element of islam that is very dangerous and very radical."   That's a far cry from his original pronouncement that islam is a religion "of the devil".   I guess he didn't like the public spanking that he received.

But fringe christian fundamentalists need not fear.   Amarillo's own fringe religious fanatic, David Grisham, has stepped forward to continue the craziness.   It seems there is no bit of religious bigotry too extreme for Grisham, who claims to be a preacher but actually earns his living as a security guard.   Grisham is the head of the small but vocal religious group called Repent Amarillo, who have recently received some undeserved headlines for their opposition to "promiscuity, homosexuality and non-christian worship practices through confrontation and prayer."

Grisham told the Amarillo Globe News last Friday that he and a few friends would gather in an Amarillo park and burn a few Qurans.   He said he is doing it "to show support for the Rev. Terry Jones."   He claimed to have waited until Friday to announce his intentions "to avoid national media attention."   That's a load of crap!   Grisham has never avoided any publicity in the past -- and note that he contacted the media to inform them of his silly plans.

I think he didn't think of this little publicity stunt until Friday, and by then it was too late for any media to be interested except for the local media (and they probably would have ignored it if anything even remotely newsworthy was happening in Amarillo).   Grisham would like to think of himself as a religious "mover and shaker" in the Texas Panhandle, but most people in Amarillo have difficulty stifling a yawn when he and his little group do anything.

I think David Grisham's (and Repent Amarillo's) 15 minutes of fame is about up -- and that's a good thing.

-------------------------

UPDATE -- It looks like Grisham is even more incompetent that I thought.   He couldn't even burn a single book.   He put a Quran on a barbeque grill at the park and squirted lighter fluid on it.   But before he could light it on fire, a teenager snatched it up and ran off with it.   Grisham gave up and went home like the pathetic loser that he is.

-------------------------

UPDATE II -- It has been learned that the person who grabbed the Quran was not a teenager after all.   It was 23 year-old Jacob Isom.   He gave the Quran to an Amarillo imam.   The imam gave it to Amarillo police to keep Mr. Isom from being arrested for theft.   However, Grisham remains a pathetic loser.