Obama Urges Fla. Pastor to Cancel Quran Burning

(Sept. 9) -- President Barack Obama called upon a Florida pastor not to burn the Quran, denouncing the act as "completely contrary to our values" and warning that it could become a "recruitment bonanza" for al-Qaida.

"If he's listening, I just hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values," the president said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" today. "This country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance."

Obama said a plan by the controversial pastor, Terry Jones, to burn the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks was a "stunt" that would endanger U.S. troops abroad.

Jones, the 58-year-old leader of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., regards Islam as a "false religion" and has said he wants to burn the Quran to "send a clear message to the radical element of Islam" that the United States "will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats." He is the author of a book titled "Islam Is of the Devil."

Obama, who has described himself as a "devout Christian," appealed to the pastor's sense of religion today. "He says he's someone who is motivated by his faith," Obama told ABC. "I hope he listens to ... those better angels."

The president is only the latest in a growing number of public figures, from Angelina Jolie to the Indonesian president, to have spoken out against the planned Quran burning in recent days and pleaded with the bombastic pastor to stand down.

On her Facebook page Wednesday evening, Sarah Palin slammed Jones' plan as an "insensitive and an unnecessary provocation."

"If your ultimate point is to prove that the Christian teachings of mercy, justice, freedom and equality provide the foundation on which our country stands, then your tactic to prove this point is totally counterproductive," she wrote. "Book burning is antithetical to American ideals."

The planned Quran burning, a local event that has metastasized into seemingly global significance, is expected to draw far more protesters than participants to Gainesville. Scores of religious leaders have condemned Jones' plans, but concerns sharpened this week after Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that burning the Muslim holy book could "endanger troops" and "endanger the overall effort."

During a U.N. goodwill tour of Pakistan, actress Jolie said, " I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody's religious book."

The Vatican agrees, and on Tuesday, it issued a simple statement on the matter on the front page of its official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. "No one burns the Quran," the headline explained plainly. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder have also spoken out publicly against the event.

In Indonesia, where thousands protested against the Quran burning earlier this week with chants of "Long live Islam" and "Death to America," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent a formal request to Obama asking him to stop the "hideous act." But Jones is protected under the First Amendment, and experts agree it would be very difficult to stop the pastor through legal means.

Jones, for his part, shows no signs of backing down. "We have no intention of canceling," he told reporters Wednesday.