Rackspace Web Hosting Services Dumps 'Koran Burning' Church Site

The Dove World church is a very, very small church based outside of Gainesville, FL. They have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 - 50 members. Why are we talking about them? It is their intention to burn the Koran on Saturday, the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, that has brought them to the forefront, at least this time, as well as their web host: Rackspace.

Rackspace says move contractual

Rackspace is the web host for the church's website. That site is www.dovechurch.org. It's also currently down, because Rackspace pulled the rug out from under the site, saying it violated their Terms of Service. You can, however, see an old cached copy here.

According to Rackspace, Dove Church website center "violated the hate-speech provision of our acceptable-use policy." Contractual or not, many are saying this was a good move on the part of the web host.

Coincidentally, Rackspace stock was up 3 percent. Approximately 2 million shares traded hands on Thursday vs a. average 30-day volume of 1.6 million shares. Obviously, coincidental, but still of note.

In fact, one need only look around briefly to see a number of critics of Dove Church. They include no less than the Vatican, and even Gen. David Petraeus, who warned that the plan "could cause significant problems" for American troops overseas.

Even GOP pundit Sarah Palin spoke out against the plan. On Facebook, Palin wrote that Jones' planned Koran burning "will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric and appear as nothing more than mean-spirited religious intolerance. Don't feed that fire."

Still, Dove Church's pastor, Terry Jones, says he still plans to go ahead with the plan. He notes that they are burning books, not people. However, some have asked him to look inside: how would he feel if it were Bibles being burned?

In addition, his church failed to obtain a permit to burn the books, as they plan, outside. In an interview on NPR, the mayor of Gainesville, Craig Lowe, said that he would have both police and firefighters on hand to respond, though he was not clear what that meant.

At any rate, Dove World Outreach Center won't be promoting itself on the web. That is, at least until they find a host to replace Rackspace.

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