I wasn’t going to post on this… perhaps other than to say it’s absurd that we’re debating the right of a people in our country to build a house of worship. It’s kind of like debating legal segregation. Haven’t we moved past this a long time ago? (Or not so long ago in the case of racial segregation.) I don’t want to debate freedom of religion any more than I want to debate slavery.
But I do mention this because my wife said that a friend of hers on facebook didn’t even know that this mosque is not being built at the World Trade Center site. Really? Do people really not know this? Are people getting all huffy over a moot point?
45 and 47 Park Place. You can punch it into Google and see where it is. It’s nearwhere the World Trade Center was. Two blocks away, to be precise. So is the Hudson River. So is City Hall Park. I mean, in lower Manhattan, everything is close. If people really want to create a “no-mosque zone,” at want point exactly would it be OK to build a mosque?
See, since the mosque and cultural center isn’t at Ground Zero, I see this much more as an issue for people who hate Islam. That’s not a debate I care to enter. Even though I like pork and drinking, I try not to hate. Islam is not terrorism (and if you don’t know that, you must learn. — But Wahhabism spread by our Saudi [pause for quotes] “allies”? That might be another story.)
So is this “hallowed ground”? No. But why don’t you judge for yourself?
Well once the Mosque goes up I hope someone takes the advice from Andrew Sullivan's blog and opens a gay bar next door.
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/08/name-that-bar.html
You're right, the opposition to this is based on bigotry and trying to get a political advantage.
I'm not particularly enamored of any religion, but I do rather appreciate "freedom of religion".
Plus not letting the mosque go up just plays into the Islamonutjobs hands.
Bin Laden and his merry band of teeny dicked Wahhabi followers would love to tell the world that America hates Islam.
There probably already is a gay bar next door!
To link this or any old mosque with Sep. 11 would be like hating all churches because the Klan marches under a cross.
"To link this or any old mosque with Sep. 11 would be like hating all churches because the Klan marches under a cross."
Or it would be like hating all cops because some are bad.
The problem is, as an outsider (of both muslims and cops) it is hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones.
Oh, and just so you can say you know at least one conservative who is ok with the mosque. I could care less about this mosque, let them built it.
It's worse to hate people of a religion than people of a uniform. You choose to wear a uniform. You have power, a gun, and handcuffs. And you represent authority. (not that that all makes it right). But I think it's worse to pick on the little guy. And a police officer *does* represent all police more than a Muslim represents all Muslims.
If you want to compare religions to occupations (no doubt stretching this analogy a bit too far), I would say that the diversity of Muslims is more like all public employees. So I would be like hating a cop because a library employee did you wrong. It just doesn't make sense.
Speaking of hating religions, have we so quickly forgot about the sack of Constantinople in 1204? Never forget.