Lucilius: "A symbolic burning at a demonstration is a legit form of protest. It's not like you don't hand out thousands of copies for free. Once given, they're the new owner's property to burn, ignore or cherish.
I agree wholeheartedly with this.
Burning books is not a big deal, people. Fahrenheit 451 was about burning every copy of every book. If you're out to destroy ideas and history in this way, then that's pretty despicable. If you're burning somebody else's copy of a book, then that's pretty despicable. But if you're burning your own copy of a book, then there's no reasonable cause for complaint as it's nothing but a legitimate (if untidy and evidently pretty controversial) form of protest at the book's hideously offensive content.
Burning books isn't something that I've ever done, but it's hardly off the cards. A single book is nothing but ink on paper, and I am stifling nothing, hiding nothing and destroying nothing lasting by burning one copy of it. Or tearing it up and using it as toilet paper, or whatever. If burning all copies of a book and stifling the voice of its writer - even, say, if that writer was Ann Coulter - was even feasible, I wouldn't do that. That's not cricket at all.
Similarly, I'd burn a chunky KKK pamphlet as a protest but not every copy of one. All the same thing.
I'm willing to admit, however, that due to its controversial nature this was probably not a smart move on the part of whoever did it since people's knee-jerk reactions to book-burning will only set back the cause of gay rights. Really, the fact that Proposition 8 passed in California pisses me off and disappoints me as much as the next vaguely reasonable guy, but let's just wait and see whether the Supreme Court shoots it down for being unconstitutional before we start with the controversial protesting.
Additionally, I'm guessing that people aren't complaining about the black people who voted in favour of prop 8 because they didn't vote in favour of it because they were black, they voted (for the most part) in favour of it because they were the kind of Christian who expresses bigotry towards homosexuals. The fact that they evidently do not see the blatant parallels to their own civil rights struggle and battle for dignity is neither here nor there.
