The Koran burner of downtown Manhattan loses his job

On Sunday I expressed my admiration for the man who was seen in a video tearing pages from a Koran and burning them with his cigarette lighter in lower Manhattan: “The man handled himself with dignity and made a good impression. I praise and honor this man.” Now this upright and courageous American, whose name is Derek Fenton, has been fired from his job at New Jersey Transit for “violating his trust as a state employee.” How many leftist employees of the State of New Jersey have burned U.S. flags and done similar despicable things at various Communist front, anti-American, and black racist demonstrations and kept their jobs? I don’t think this can stand. This is pure PC in action.

For God’s sake. Feisal Rauf makes repeated threatening and pro-terrorist statements against America, and is appointed as a Muslim good will ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Derek Fenton burns a few pages from a book he owns, and is thrown out of his job with the State of New Jersey. An open enemy of our country is honored amd given a position of influence by the government, while a patriot and defender of our country is thrown in the trash heap by the government. This cannot continue. Our liberal controllers cannot keep getting away with this. They’re going to end up in some American equivalent of La Place Louis Quinze. Even the most peaceable and law-abiding people will turn into revolutionaries, if you keep kicking them in the teeth long enough, as our traitorous “leaders” are doing to us.

Koran burner Derek Fenton booted from his job at NJ Transit
Originally Published:Tuesday, September 14th 2010, 7:55 PM

The protestor who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero was fired from NJ Transit over the controversial act, sources and authorities said yesterday.

Derek Fenton’s 11-year career at the agency came to an abrupt halt Monday after photographs of him ripping pages from the Muslim holy book and setting them ablaze appeared in newspapers.

Fenton was ushered from the protests by police and questioned, but he was released without charges.

“He said this is America, and he wanted to stand up for it, in a Tea Party kind of way,” a police source said.

Another police source said Fenton described himself as a “loyal American” exercising his “right to protest.”

Still, that source said Fenton looked like he was having second thoughts as he was released.

“He looked nervous, like he was starting to think it wasn’t such a good idea,” the police source said.

Fenton burned the book during a protest on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 outside of Park51, the controversial mosque slated to be built near Ground Zero. He was apparently inspired by Pastor Terry Jones, the Florida clergyman who threatened to burn the books that day but later changed his mind.

Described by neighbors as a likable family guy with two children, Fenton was an assistant train consist coordinator, a job that entails ensuring there are enough train cars positioned to be put into service, sources said. He previously worked as a NJ Transit conductor.

NJ Transit confirmed Fenton was fired but wouldn’t elaborate.

“Mr. Fenton’s public actions violated New Jersey Transit’s code of ethics,” an agency statement said. “NJ TRANSIT concluded that Mr. Fenton violated his trust as a state employee and therefore was dismissed.”

Several neighbors in Fenton’s Bloomingdale neighborhood stood up for his right to express himself with flames.

“Good for him for burning the Koran,” neighbor Jacqui Marquez, 40, said. “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion … by firing him, they’re sending a message that there’s no freedom of speech. They’re completely wrong for doing this.”

“He’s a family man,” neighbor Randy McConnell, 43, said. “He loves his kids and he loves trains. I don’t agree with what he did, but he shouldn’t lose his job over it. That’s his right.”

[end of article]

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Charles T. writes:

Here is the home page for NJ transit.

Here is the contact page for NJ transit.

Here is the diversity page at NJ transit. Take note of this declaration on the diversity page:

NJ TRANSIT’s Office of Business Diversity is an entry point of opportunity for small business. As part of the NJ TRANSIT Department of Diversity Programs, the goal of the Office of Business Diversity is to “level the playing field” for disadvantaged, minority, women-owned and small business enterprises (DBEs, MWBEs and SBEs). It does this by ensuring the participation of these businesses in all of NJ TRANSIT’s federally funded contracts. Each annual goal reflects NJ TRANSIT’s dedication to “leveling the playing field.”

The emphasis with italics and quotations marks are theirs. Look at the declaration to “level the playing field.” This is, of course, a euphemism for legalized discrimination against whomever they wish to discriminate against and a declaration of their legal authority to do business with whomever they wish to do business with—even if it discriminates. It is a fascist statement.

Mr. Derek Fenton was working in a very hostile, politically correct environment to begin with.

Time to contact NJ Transit and demand this man’s rights to free speech be respected.

I hope he sues the NJ Transit Authority.

Mark A. writes:

When it is taken for granted that all races, creeds, and cultures have equal value, any inequality requires Liberalism to bring its hammer down on the superior individual. Of course, the modern liberal is usually a gutless Caucasian, and the lowest hanging fruit to abuse are the types of poor souls like Derek Fenton. The modern liberal knows he is defenseless—even his union, which is probably thoroughly corrupted by minority preferences, won’t stand up for him. This a tragedy. But it represents the true nature of our liberal masters: vicious, gutless, and insolent.

Charles T. writes:

If you become aware of a legal defense fund to help this guy, please let your fellow VFR’ers know. I will immediately send a donation to him.

Paul K. writes:

This is what diversity does to freedom. It’s infuriating.

Paul K. writes:

Let me add that it’s things like this that make me glad Christine O’Donnell won her primary, even if it means the Republicans won’t win the senate. Right now, it’s more important that we let politicians know how angry we are than to put more liberal Republicans in office.

Ingemar P. writes:

Before Pastor Jones folded under the weight of the whole dhimmi world, I had a conversation with my uncle about the upcoming Koran burning. He, a Catholic, laughed and actually wished Jones would go through with it. However he noted that the Muslim world is growing so fast and that “our time is over. It’s their time now.”

How could it be that even people who denounce Islam for the vile religion that it is be so apathetic or even accommodating to it? Islam growing and Christianity fading didn’t just “happen;” somebody had to do something or somebody had to let somebody do something. Even Christians who are strong in their convictions seem spineless in the face of the Islamic menace. We cannot pull a Ferdinand and Isabella because that would make us vile as them, they say—but then they also say that Islam is a fine religion. That Allah and the Triune God are the same (I got into another argument at www.orthocuban.com for saying that Allah is not God). That we should “dialogue,” even though the truth is that Islam sees our faith as a bastardization of the real thing, and that apostasy from Islam is punishable by death.

I suppose the reason why the Christian world cannot defend itself from Islam (even though, as that vile nihilist Fred Reed alleges, the “Christians” are more a threat to the Muslim than they are to us) is that the Christian world devoured itself centuries ago. No one is willing to fight for the Faith. No one in the Faith believes that fighting for it is good. I suppose they believe that “sure, Christianity will go down, but not in my lifetime.” They are tarnishing the Faith more than any hypocrite could, and harming future Christians more than any provocation of the Muslims could.

Now, I guess that the decline of Christianity means that it is actually returning to its historical norm. I know Apostle Paul encourages us to be bold in the face of persecution. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Hannon writes:

The phrase “level the playing field” is curious the way it is commonly used. If one reduces concerns of equality to the metaphor of height, one would need a very uneven playing field to achieve evenness at head height—or to enforce “equality” in the workplace. A level playing field is not what liberals want as it does not provide any advantage for any player.

LA replies:

The liberal is telling himself that he is only removing the unfair advantages enjoyed by the haves and the unfair disadvantages suffered by the have-nots; so from his point of view he is indeed leveling the playing field, which before he embarked on his leveling efforts was uneven.

Joseph writes:

I found that the current head of NJ Transit is James Weinstein. His e-mail is: jweinstein@njtransit.com (as found here). It may be a good idea to go straight to the (proximate) top with our complaints.

Outraged,
Joseph

Joseph continues:

I just sent the following email to Mr. Weinstein. I hope that NJ Transit gets flooded with mail:

Concerning Derek Fenton’s Firing

Dear Mr. Weinstein,

I trust that you, as Executive Director of New Jersey Transit, are aware of Mr. Fenton’s firing after his Koran burning protest over the weekend. Regardless of what we may think of Mr. Fenton’s ideas or actions, he did not (as far as I know from the press reports) perform his protest as an employee but as an American citizen, on his own time, and in his own capacity. As far as I understand, he did nothing illegal either. Therefore, how is it justifiable for your organization to fire him based on private actions that he did on his own time? Such appears to me to be such a corporate overreach that it negates the very freedom of speech that we hold so dear as Americans.

Moreover, I strongly suspect that New Jersey Transit is not applying its policies equally. If the organization has such “high” ethical standards that it concerns itself with what its employees do on their own time and in their own name, then clearly the entire workforce at New Jersey Transit must have spotless police records. New Jersey Transit’s workers must never have engaged in controversial political protests or behavior—involving, for example, seditious speech at antiwar rallies in the past decade, mockery of or indeed threats against the former U.S. president, desecration of American civic symbols, or participation in far left labor and Communist affiliated rallies. Lastly, no workers attended any political or artistic events that could be seen as sacrilegious to one of the world’s major religions. Surely not!

Mr. Weinstein, I ask that the you look into the matter and see that Mr. Fenton is treated fairly even though his political views contrast sharply with the dominant opinion. From the outside, it certainly appears otherwise.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 14, 2010 09:40 PM | Send