Defending the Ground Zero Mosque
A couple of great defenses were made yesterday for building the Muslim cultural center in New York. Mayor Bloomberg made a brilliant speech within the context of the history of the fight for religious freedom in New York. The money quote:
Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.Also, of all people Jeffrey Goldberg made an equally eloquent defense.
“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.
Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels.Both are well worth reading in full. In a sane world, people would listen and the protests would end.
I know Feisal Abdul Rauf; I've spoken with him at a public discussion at the 96th street mosque in New York about interfaith cooperation. He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of this mosque project are giving him what he wants.
posted by Libby Spencer at 11:30 AM
4 Comments:
Sane world? I just told an old friend to go F himself over this one. One of these idiots who moans about our lost freedoms while tossing freedom of religion into the sh*t can.
Screw the WTC. They were the ugliest buildings in the city and have become another piece of sacred bullshit we're supposed to weep and wail over while burying everything left that's good about America in the rubble.
Screw it - it's just a damned building and lets pay some attention to the people who died in it and died from cleaning it up and yes, some were Muslims and Jews, Black people and White, Gay and Straight, young and old. Screw those bastards crying crocodile tears while pissing on their ashes.
I agree Fogg. The protesters are always whining about losing THEIR freedom, but want to abridge everyone else's.
Try asking one to enumerate the lost freedoms and watch him shuck and jive trying to think of one -- yet it's a tenet of their "faith."
SO true. Having an interesting convo with a hard core Catholic on FB about PropHate. Her argument basically boils down to, how dare "those" people not conform to my religious views.
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