| Not much to say about the "mosque" brouhaha in New York City, other than Obama was exactly right when he said, "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances." There's really no room for disagreement if you believe in private property rights and the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom.
So it's not surprising that many on the angry right have long opposed the rec center from being built in lower Manhattan and have been attacking Obama steadily for making those remarks, despite Mark Halperin's plea for Republican sanity:
Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001.
But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now - the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric - is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.
Uh, Mark? Compared to the sh*t the GOP has pulled - the Iraq war, torture, politicization of the DoJ, not to mention obstruction of health care reform and climate change legislation - this would be small change. They've already shredded the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, are talking about gutting the Fourteenth, and already have a long and stormy relationship with the First. And civility is not a strongpoint in the Republican party.
Of course, that's not to belittle the question of religious freedom in the country. I think Simon Schama's right on when he claimed that the First Amendment - the separation of church and state - enabled some of the most interesting and vibrant - and peaceful -- religious experiments the world has seen:
In the United States the Founding Fathers believed...that religious truth would best be served by keeping the state out of the business of its propagation; that the power of religious engagement would not just survive freedom of conscience but be its noblest consequence. It was a daring bet: that faith and freedom were mutually nourishing. But it paid off and it has made America uniquely qualified to fight the only battle that matters, not General Boykin's quixotic reenactment of the true god against the false idol, but the war of toleration against conformity; the war of a faith that commands obedience against a faith that promises liberty. That, actually turns out to be the big American story.
Ironically, then, Obama's principles actually enable rightwing Christian conservatism to flourish. The precedent of overriding private property rights and religious freedom would be disastrous to the same fringe elements that beat the drum against a Muslim recreation center near Ground Zero.
After all, the group whose views on the Manhattan rec center most closely resembles that of the right's is Hamas, a "co-founder" of which said the "mosque" "has to be built," seeing it in terms of religious competition. Mosques and churches and temples are the architectural equivalent of religious armies encroaching on enemy territory.
I say we turn our backs on Hamas and Pam Geller. Let the law of the land prevail. |
