Burning a Koran?

I was laying in bed last night when the news came on. A preacher in Florida has decided to burn a Koran (Qur’an) on 9/11 in a ceremony with others.  Honestly, I was appalled. I'm studying Communications and currently taking a Mass Media Law class which mainly covers the first amendment. I saw on Facebook that there is even a group of this sort of thing which surprised me, however, I'm sure there's worse out there! 

We live in a country where we have many freedoms and we are truly blessed to have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I do not understand however how someone of faith can justify burning a Koran. Okay, so it is part of free speech, but isn't this preacher and his followers sending the same hate crime message that the terrorists do?  How many times have we seen someone in another country (or here even) burn our beautiful American flag?  It makes us sick and we don't want that.  While we want to protect our country and not allow terrorists, burning a Koran doesn't exactly fix the situation.  It just breeds hate.  Not all Muslims are terrorists. What will be next?  What's appropriate? What's not?  What message are we really sending?