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From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media.

Brooke Gladstone is on a reporting trip to Cairo this week.

I'm Bob Garfield.

Freedom of speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, sometimes has the vilest of consequences. It permits the Westboro Baptist Church to stage protests at military

funerals, assailing grieving families with hate rants about homosexuality and American apostasy.

In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that the American

Nazi Party had the right under the First Amendment to parade before Holocaust survivors

in the predominantly Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois. Freedom of speech is why

flag desecration is a lawful act, no matter how it may dishonor the sacrifices of those who fought and died under that banner.

And two weeks ago, Freedom of Speech gave Florida pastor Terry Jones licensed to set fire to a Koran in judgment of Islam's supposed crimes against God and man.

And beginning last weekend came the consequences of that constitutionally protected act.

Thousands of Afghans filled Mazar Sharih Sharif after Friday prayers,

furious over news that pastors had burned a copy of the Quran.

At least 12 people, including six United Nations staff,

have been killed in an attack on the UN guesthouse. There's been further violence in Afghanistan

following the burning of a Quran in the US last month. At least one person's been killed and 18

injured in a third day of protests. Some commentators blamed Terry Jones for intentionally

enraging violent radicals who regard blasphemy as punishable by death.

Some blamed Islam itself for barbaric notions of justice.

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