Saturday, July 31, 2010

Freedom of religion

I confess I haven't followed the mosque at Ground Zero story that closely until today. I assumed it was going to be just another shiny distraction for the usual hatemongering wingnuts and would die out on its own. Sadly I was wrong. I see, in a grim illustration of how far our media has fallen, the NYT is pimping the ADL's thinly veiled bigotry this morning.

So we have yet another colossal tradmed fail in merely reporting the bigots' commentary and it's once again the bloggers who provide the context. To start, there's already a mosque a block away from the proposed site of the new one. It's been there since 1970. Also the new site is not even a mosque, it's a cultural center.

And J Street nails an important point:
What better ammunition to feed the Osama bin Ladens of the world and their claim of anti-Muslim bias in the United States as they seek to whip up global jihad than to hold this proposal for a Muslim religious center to a different and tougher standard than other religious institutions would be.
Like free speech, when you deny religious freedom to one religion, it endangers that freedom for all religions. This should be obvious. Not sure why it's not.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

As bad as the American opinion of Muslims is these days, their opinion of the way we think and act toward them is far further into the ozone.

The idea that we're out to kill them all because they're Muslim and that we hate them mostly because we're a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel and the Jews seems universal.

The ADL should know better and we're looking at another example of why religion and government should have a lead wall between them.

11:13:00 AM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

It's a mess on all sides Fogg. And it's not just the ADL. Our politicians on all sides fuel the anger as much as the NGOs do and the media fans the flames to raise their ratings. Can't end well.

11:19:00 AM  

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