Salon's Justin Elliott:
A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero" a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday, but so far the project hasn't drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the "ground zero mosque."
Pastor Bill Keller of Florida said today he will begin preaching Sunday at the Marriott at 85 West Street (see proximity to ground zero here). A weekly service is planned at the hotel until the $8 million 9/11 Christian Center finds a permanent space. (Fundraising is going well, Keller told Salon today.)
To get a sense of where Keller is coming from, consider his project's website, which calls Islam a religion of "hate and death" whose adherents will go to hell. It also says: "Islam is a wonderful religion... for PEDOPHILES!"
Keller's mission in life is to impose his version of Christianity on the rest of America -- the First Amendment or the Constitution be damned. Unlike the Park51 proponents, he is adamantly opposed to religious pluralism. He wants to turn America into a Christian version of Mecca. He is a poster-child of the American Taliban.
His bigotry cuts across the theological spectrum. Here's a perfect example from a story TIME's Michael Scherer wrote for Salon back in 2007:
Keller has focused his biblical fire on a new target, Mitt Romney. Keller opposes Romney because the Republican presidential contender is a Mormon.
"A vote for Romney is a vote for Satan," Keller declared in his daily e-mail devotional last May. His reasoning went like this: Romney's election would serve as a giant advertisement for a competing religion, Mormonism, which Keller and others believe has falsely portrayed itself as another form of Christianity in an effort to find converts. "He would influence people to seek out the Mormon faith," Keller predicted of a Romney presidency. "They would get sucked into those lies and they would eventually die and go to hell."
Keep in mind this was back in 2007. You also won't be surprised to learn that Keller also hates Glenn Beck (who is also Mormon) accusing him of being the most deceptive figure in media other than Oprah Winfrey -- because he is a Mormon.
Now, all that being said, despite my own views about Keller's theology and ideology, I still strongly believe that Keller and his flock should be protected by the First Amendment -- even though they would not afford the same protections to their neighbor. Freedom of religion is at the heart of our Constitution, and if we abandon that, we abandon the American dream.
But to those who would deny American Muslims those same protections because they falsely believe that those Muslims seek to impose Sharia Law on the United States, what on Earth is stopping you from protesting Keller with equal vigor? The only answer, it would seem, is that he's not Muslim. He may be just as a fundamentalist and loony as the real Taliban, but because he's part of the American Taliban, he gets the wingnut seal of approval. It's crazy.