Mailbag:

As a pastor, I was shocked to learn of the burning of the Koran at the Islamic Education Center of Orange County. As a Costa Mesa resident, I feel frightened knowing that someone like “Seabreeze” lives in our community. The fact that this person does not acknowledge the hate crime belittling it, and further threatening to commit a mass burning of the Koran as a beach bonfire, is appalling and unconscionable. Initially, I was upset with the Daily Pilot for displaying the comment on the front page of the paper.

Such hate speech doesn’t deserve to be printed.

However, as the words festered over the last few days, I’ve decided that it is important that hatred and discrimination be in our face so that we cannot ignore the reality that it exists. With it on the forefront of our minds, we are forced to see it and must respond.

When I wrote in Jan. 9’s “In Theory,” I quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

We cannot ignore the attack upon our Muslim brothers and sisters or this second attack by “Seabreeze.”

This cannot be tolerated.

As my congregation honored King, we lifted up his prayer for a community where discrimination ceases to exist.

Don’t put hate speech in my Pilot

I am very sorry that you chose to print in the Jan. 10 edition the “Seabreeze” response to the article “Police: Torched Koran a hate crime.”

I resent that you chose to print “hate speech” on the front page of your paper.

I know the words expressed exist in this area of Southern California, but I don’t want to see them on the front page of my Daily Pilot.

Dennis W. Short

Pastor

Harbor Christian Church and

Member of the Regional Anti-Racism Team

Of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Pacific Southwest Region