Mosque... Ow! On the Hudson?
To a degree, I can appreciate the upset over “the mosque” issue. I have family members in Connecticut who were close to some of the families directly affected by the events of 9/11.
The debate over this issue makes me sad and the hyper-ventilating, fear-mongering makes me even sadder.
Opposing “the mosque” seems to defy all that America is about, and all that our troops are fighting and dying for….freedom.
Allowing “the mosque” at Ground Zero, can be seen as a direct affront to the people who lost loved ones, some of whom now have a deep-seated fear and hatred of the Muslim world. Fear and hatred are counter-productive, tending to have a longer-lasting, negative impact on the hater than on the hated. I think the other point that’s being overblown here is that IT IS NOT ACTUALLY A MOSQUE, but an Islamic Cultural Center, and IT”S NOT AT GROUND ZERO.
It’s curious that The Burlington Factory Building is being referred to as hallowed ground. For goodness sake, it’s not actually at the WTC site and WE haven’t even built anything on the actual hallowed site, after 10 years. How close is too close and how far is far enough. Calling it a mosque adds fuel to the fire. It’s not, so don’t call it that and most of the ginned-up controversy goes away.
I think that as Americans we are compelled to defer to the freedom argument. It is the very core of our being, as a society. To do otherwise, would be to lose something of great value.
Actual mosques, like churches, were once built on “conquered” lands. Often the churches were purchased for conversion to mosques and new churches were built. This is especially true in Syria and Turkey, that still have Christian churches sitting beside mosques.
The Cordoba argument (postulated by Newt Gingrich and carried along by Glenn Beck) has no merit, and misses the mark completely in terms of historic accuracy and context. I’m no expert on the history of Cordoba, or the inferred referential meaning, but this guy is, and he does a pretty good job of providing a fact-based argument as a counter to Newt’s fear-mongering. Read it for yourself and decide.
http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010/08/professor-newts-distorted-history.html
2 comments:
If you didn't read it, Mayor Bloomberg gave a great speech defending the decision to build the cultural center.
That sums it up nicely.
I think Congressman Anthony Weiner (NY) also got it right when he talked about the “bright line” example of the separation of church and state, explaining: “There is no constitutional interpretation that would ever say a member of Congress should be deciding where a mosque should or should not go.”
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