Question for DU: If flag burning is "protected speech", isn't book burning also protected?

[MH1]

28. That's an interesting point.

As I added in my post, the unsafe transport of kerosene made it an easy call in this case.

I think if someone wants to burn a book on their property, it's not the business of the law. If they invite friends, video it, and overlay the video with text that says "Death to Muslims!" and post it on Youtube, then I have a problem with it, and suspect that it would legally be considered a threat, and that consequences would follow for the ringleader of whoever did it. But again, IANAL. And what about the in-between areas? Where death is not explicitly called for, but the speaker is talking about how awful a certain group of people are, and they deserve bad things to befall them, and so on. (Think Rwanda). I think that's protected speech here (unless maybe you're talking about the President). Whether or not it should be is a philosophical question. Can speech cause physical harm? Of course it can. But outside a couple obvious rules, it becomes difficult to draw a line.

As to the anti gay laws in Russia: I am against any law that oppresses someone for who they are, or sanctions violence against people for just being who they are. I don't know the details of the Russia situation but it sounds awful and those people should be ashamed.

As to what you say my post assumes: no it does not. If someone is American, they live by American laws, and we are allowed to write a law that says that disrespect to our own country is a legitimate form of protest. Being Muslim is irrelevant to being American. I don't think preachers should be making a "protest" of burning Jewish symbols or pride flags, either. As a practical matter, though, more innocents are more likely to be harmed by the backlash from an insult to Islam than an insult to these others. Currently, that's just how it is.
ETA: as I first stated, we are ALLOWED of course to allow all kinds of insults to ANYONE as a form of protest. But what the law allows and what should be done are separate things. And we get to choose how to run our society.