I write a newsletter and website called Social Notes for the Houston lesbian community. In addition to a GLBT calendar and miscellaneous networking info, I occasionally include a Rant on national political topics of the day. I write for readers who lean left but are typically not consumed by politics the way we Kossacks are. My goal in these Rants is to consolidate information and present the key facts on an issue in a snarky, fun way. And of course to persuade my readers to my point of view! Here is my Rant about the so called "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy:
Well, unless you are living under a bridge these days, you've probably heard that folks have got their Undies In A Bundle over the idea that a mosque is going to be built at Ground Zero. As Caribou Barbie tweets: "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts". Gosh, a mosque right at Ground Zero, which Palin calls "hallowed ground" sure does sound ill-advised. Of course, none of what she claims is true, but then again, when has she ever let the facts get in the way of a good opportunity to rouse the rabble!
Here's the real poop behind this brouhaha:
• The proposed facility is NOT a mosque - it is a Muslim community center (swimming pool, meeting rooms etc) that happens to contain a prayer room. And no, a prayer center does NOT equal a mosque. Otherwise we’d have to classify the Pentagon as a mosque, since it also contains a Muslim prayer room.
• The location is NOT at Ground Zero - it is two big city blocks away, in a busy commercial area. You cannot see Ground Zero from the Community Center and you cannot see the Community Center from Ground Zero.
• The Center's site is hardly "hallowed ground" - it is a vacant Burlington Coat Factory on a crappy urban street! And speaking of hallowed ground, here are other things within a 3 block radius of Ground Zero: tittie bars, a gay bar, nail salons, street vendors selling tasteless 9-11 crap and all manner of downscale urban storefronts. Should we also destroy all of them in the name of hallowedness? For God's sakes, they are currently building a shopping center in the basement of the Ground Zero construction site. I wonder, is Cinnabon going to be judged "hallow" enough to put a store in the basement of the towers? And who gets to do the judging? Oh, you know the answer to that – the right wing has the self-declared Registered Trademark on Patriotism, 9-11, and All That Is Good About America. After all, the left is too busy revealing its Communist/Socialist/Fascist self, ramming vaguely progressive legislation "down our throats", and in general planning to destroy The Country As We Know It.
• The righties intentionally conflate Al Qaeda with the entire Muslim religion. If we follow that "logic", shouldn't we shut down churches near the Murrah Building bomb site in Oklahoma because terrorist Timothy McVeigh, a Christian, blew up a federal building there? The Daily Show also came up with a great analogy, when John Oliver said "Sure, it’s LEGAL to build Catholic churches near a playground, but is it WISE?" We all understand that it is unfair to tar the whole Catholic religion with the actions of its pedophile priests. Why is it so hard to understand the fundamental unfairness of blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few demented losers?
• Oh yeah, it turns out that there are already at least 2 mosques within a several block radius of Ground Zero, and in fact a prayer group has been meeting at the Burlington Coat Factory site for a year. Odd how life seems to have gone on quite nicely with all that potential terrorist activity so close to the "hallowed site".
• And here’s the latest monkey poo being flung by those deep thinkers on the right: they claim that the Imam who is leading the Community Center effort has "deep ties" to terrorism and has spoken harshly about the US. In fact, he served as George W. Bush’s special envoy in the days after 9-11, in an attempt to build bridges with Muslims across the globe, and he was invited to speak at the funeral of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist who was beheaded by Al Qaeda. Guess he must have been hiding his terrorist tendencies pretty well back then.
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Of course, the Bill of Rights makes it very clear that all religions have the right to freely congregate and worship here in the good ol' U S of A. And make no mistake about it, these are AMERICAN CITIZENS who want to socialize and pray with fellow believers, not some Al Qaeda underground cell plotting our demise in the shadow of the fallen towers.
Bible Spice (my new favorite nickname for Palin) and her cronies argue that just because it's legal doesn't make it right. Well, here are the reasons why I think it is positively crucial to support the Muslims in their desire to create this center:
• The Bill of Rights protects our freedoms at all times - not just when it is popular and/or convenient to do so. Indeed, those rights were enumerated specifically to protect the minority from the tyranny of a rabid majority. I understand that this feels yucky to a lot of people. But that’s when you need the protections of the Bill of Rights the most – when things are uncomfortable, unknown, inconvenient or otherwise unwanted by the majority. To bring this closer to home, opponents of gay marriage say it makes them feel yucky. Are we willing to abandon our quest for equal rights because it makes some others uncomfortable? I think not.
* When it suits their goals, the right wing defends the Bill of Rights with unwaivering devotion. In slavish devotion to their NRA masters, righties assert that 2nd amendment gun ownership rights are so absolute that even terrorists cannot be denied the right to purchase and own guns. Although they brook no watering-down of the Second Amendment, they apparently feel that First Amendment rights should be moderated according to their feelings and concerns - logic and consistency not being their strong suits.
• After 9-11, I remember a lot of people wanting the "good Muslims" to stand up and renounce the actions of the bad ones. This cultural center represents the best of the Muslim world - an effort to reach out to the entire community to build bridges of understanding and hope. They are doing what we wanted them to do, for gosh sakes!
• By supporting the creation of this center, we make a statement to the rest of the world that we LIVE by the values we preach. Tolerance and religious freedom are amongst the values that, in theory anyway, distinguish us from so many other nations. Are we really so ready to abandon these principles at the first shrill tweet from Sarah Palin? Regardless of how you feel about Muslims in general or terrorists in particular, this is not about who THEY are – it’s about who WE are.
• If we force the Center's developers to move elsewhere, aren't we confirming Al Qaeda's message to the Muslim world - that the US is waging war on their whole religion? That we only pay lip service to the values we so loudly and proudly proclaim?
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Palin and other unhinged luminaries of the far right have latched onto this issue because it is in their DNA to create "Us vs. Them" scenarios - the better to stoke the fears of their cowering base. And it isn’t by coincidence that the mid-term elections are only 10 weeks away. The evil brown people are out to steal your precious freedoms and overtake our country, doncha know. Be afraid! Throw those terror-loving Democrats out of office! Sadly, the right is playing their hand so well that even otherwise stalwart Democrats are caving under the pressure. Thanks for nothing, Howard Dean and Harry Reid! What profiles in courage - NOT!
I personally detest organized religion – ALL of them. When I think of the wars, atrocities, ignorance, discrimination and evil that have been perpetrated by followers eager to prove that their God is the bestest, I can only shake my head in disgust. However, I will passionately defend your right to practice the religion of your choice, because it’s The Right Thing To Do. To me, this is one of our generation’s tests – can we do a better job than our parents and grandparents did during WWII, when they turned a blind eye to the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent for the duration of the war? What a blot on our nation’s history that was. How will the next generation judge our actions regarding this ginned-up mosque hysteria? Will we succumb to fear, or stand up for the Constitution?
As blogger Adam Serwer recently posted: "Personally, I think every congressman or senator who opposes the Park 51 project should write the families of every Muslim service member in Iraq and Afghanistan to explain how the freedoms they're supposedly fighting for don't apply to them."
Couldn't have said it better myself!
UPDATE: Thanks to a comment by The Revenge of Shakshuka and a quick check with Politifacts, I learned that the promoters themselves do refer to a part of this facility as a mosque. One more reason why I love Daily Kos - always an opportunity to learn! But even if a part (heck, even if ALL) of this facility is a mosque, they still have the right to build it!