Bigotry.

I caught wind of the ridiculous debate surrounding a mosque+Muslim community center in New York near Ground Zero and almost threw my snack plate against the wall (this says a lot, I love food). Not only is the debate absolutely insane but it highlights some of the ignorance that Americans are stereotyped over. My bud Ethan put it best:

"The construction of a Muslim community center and mosque so close to the site of an attack by religious extremists is a victory against religious extremism, not for it."


I'm pressed for time and Ethan wrote it so well, so I will repost his post along with the statement that I agree 1,798, 345%:

The New York Mosque

I've been wanting to avoid the whole dispute over the planned Muslim community center, which would include a mosque along with other facilities, near Ground Zero, namely because I thought it would go away. To me, the issue seems pretty clear cut. But the fucking dispute will not die. It's even becoming an issue in the midterm elections. So, since part of the purpose of this blog, for me, is to get myself on record on issues that I care about, I think it's about time for me to comment on it.

I don't plan this to be a long post, because, as I said, I think the issue's pretty simple. There are two issues issues I'd like to cover, the first being, appropriately enough, the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In its entirety, the First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Legal precedent is that the protections of the first amendment apply not only to the federal government, but to state and local governments as well. Cut and dry. So, when people urge New York to deny Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf permission to build the community center because it has a mosque in it, they're advocating a drastic revision of American legal precedent and political liberties. Quite simply, the Constitution forbids the government intervention that many opponents of the mosque seem to advocate.

Second issue. Many opponents to the community center might not be explicitly or implicitly advocating government intervention, but rather question the wisdom of building a Muslim anything within blocks of Ground Zero. Those people are bigots. In the case of families of 9/11 victims or survivors of the attacks, I understand where their bigotry comes from, in the same way that I understand why a Holocaust survivor might continue to hate Germany decades after the genocide, or why my grandfather refers to "Japs" when he tells stories about World War II (though, to his credit, he does not use racial slurs when discussing Japan in general, just the Japanese in the war). But that does not excuse that bigotry, nor absolve us of the responsibility to combat it.

Islam is a religion of over one billion people--the second largest in the world, after Christianity. Yes, some of those people are fucknuts insane, and commit atrocious acts of violence against anyone who does not believe their specific, extremist version of the religion, including other Muslims. But the vast majority of those people are normal folk trying to lead normal lives. Many of them live in shithole countries with horrible human rights records, but, on the other hand, that's true of many Christians, too. And in the same way that the IRA, Lord's Resistance Army and George W. Bush don't even begin to represent the entirety of Christianity, al-Qaida and the Taliban don't scratch the surface of Islam.

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not particularly fond of America. It's not because America doesn't look good on paper. It's because so many people in this country seem to have no idea about the values to which this nation is ostensibly dedicated. The construction of a Muslim community center and mosque so close to the site of an attack by religious extremists is a victory against religious extremism, not for it. That's the kind of shit this country is supposed to stand for. If we lose sight of that, then we might as well just have done and let the military run the country.

After all, they couldn't do any worse a job than Congress.
Ethan Jennings

Again Ethan, well done.
I couldn't agree more.