Transcript: ABC News' Terry Moran Interviews Pastor Terry Jones

Sept. 9, 2010— -- The following is a transcript from ABC News' Terry Moran's interview with Pastor Terry Jones on why he decided to hold an International Burn a Koran day for "Nightline" in Gainesville, Fl., on Sept. 7, 2010.

Terry Moran: Let's begin at the beginning. how did this start? when did you come up with this idea International Burn a Koran day.

Pastor Terry Jones: Well actually one of my associates actually came up with the idea . we also last September 11th, we also did a demonstration in remembrance of the men and women that were murdered and also a demonstration against Islam and Sharia law. So we did this last year so this year we thought what can we do and we came up with the idea of the international burn a Koran day. Actually for two reasons, the same as last year, to remember those who were killed, murdered on September the 11th and then this year through the whole year we have, we have become more and more aware of the dangers of sharia law and the dangers of radical Islam and that's what this message is geared towards. It is not geared towards the so-called moderate Moslem but its geared towards that radical element to really send a clear message to them that radical Islam, sharia law, sharia courts, what they seem to try to institute after a period of time is not wished in America.

Moran: Let me follow up on that. Just to put it in a nutshell, why do you want to do this?

Jones: Well, basically like I said we feel we feel that a radical message is necessary. We also want to send a message to the moderate Moslem to stay peaceful and moderate. We live in America, we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, they are more than welcome to be here, worship, build mosques, but we do not want as it appears to be in parts of the world after they gain in numbers in population they begin to push sharia law, that type of government. We expect the Moslems that are here in America to respect honor, obey submit to our constitution.

Moran: As a man of faith don't you see how horrible burning someone elses holy book is?

Jones: Well, no. We see that the message that we are trying to send is actually that important. And what we are doing, you actually find in the Bible. In Acts 1919. As the people converted to Christianity, they brought books, books of magic they brought books that they felt were damaging, dangerous and they burnt those books. Even now days in our society we do not burn books and we are not promoting the burning of books, but in some countries like Germany like Holland the book from Adolf Hitler is banned because they feel it is such a dangerous book . even in Holland they are trying to ban the Koran. We are not sending that type of message. Our message is clearly to the radical element of Islam.

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Moran: But there are a billion and a half Muslims in the world. Most of whom aren't radical and you are going to burn their holy book.

Jones: Right.

Moran: You think that will persuade them of anything but the fact that they feel you hate them?

Jones: No, I think that they probably will be hurt and insulted by it.

Moran: So why do it?

Jones: Well when people burn the flag when they burn the bible when they burn down churches I'm also hurt and insulted. But we feel that this message to that radical element is that important. In fact to a certain extent we would expect moderate Moslems to agree with us. We would expect for them to say the burning of the Koran we don't agree with that's not a message that we agree with. We do not believe that this man this church this society should burn our holy book, there is no problem with that. But the message we are trying to send with that even Moslems should agree with. We are trying to send a message to the radical element of Islam. They should also be against that. Because it makes their religion look very, very bad. They should also stand to that and say yes that we agree with. We do not want sharia law. We do not want radical fanaticism Islam.

Moran: You are in the tradition in burning books of the Nazis who burnt the Talmud and the torah. Of a long line of haters. Why shouldn't people assume that you are the same?

Jones: Well I think it is very easy to see a difference. We have tried to make it very clear that even though this is a very radical message, a radical way of doing something we are not against Moslems. We do not hate them. And plus the Nazis, what the Nazis did was the Nazis gathered up all the books that were against their ideology and burned them. That's not what we are doing. We are not by any means promoting the burning of books.

Moran: But you are burning the holy book of Islam.

Jones: Right. We are burning one book for one particular reason to warn radical Islam. We see all around the world right now with Afghanistan, with the other places, we see how dangerous and how radical this element can be. They are even calling for the death of the president. And I think we think that it is time to stand up. Its time for America to stand up and say no.

Moran: Millions of devout Christians in this country look at you and what you plan to do and are revolted by it. they don't think this is a Christian thing to do at all they think it's an act of hated, of holy war.

Jones: Well there are also millions of people who agree with us.

Moran: Millions of people agree with you?

Jones: Well we have done many interviews and some of those interviews there is attached a poll and we are running somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the population agree with us. And to a certain extent i think in Christianity that is the problem. We've lost our guts, the church has become weak. The church has become afraid, the church is hiding behind their walls they no longer stand up on issues. We've had several times pastors come here saying we are in agreement with you, what you are doing is right, or anyway the message that you are wanting to send is right. But we can't say anything. If we do we will lose our congregation. We have people who work for large companies have stopped out front and said we are in agreement with you but if we say anything we will be fired. That is in a country where we supposedly have free speech.