Since this issue arose, right-wing swine like Sarah Palin have jumped all over this issue and attempted to pressure Democrats into a tricky political situation just before the crucial November elections that could swing control in the House back to the Republicans - which would in theory make the walking Melanoma tumor, John Bohener, the next speaker-in-waiting. If you ask me, Americans should be more concerned about a 60-year-old version of The Situation running the House than a well-known, peaceful Muslim sect exercising their constitutional rights to practice freedom of religion in the most diverse city on the planet - but hey, what do I know.
While this is obviously a volatile issue for many Americans, including the 9/11 victims families, who paid the greatest price, it is important that we look past the smokescreens that Republicans so graciously hypnotize our minds with and focus on the real issue in the debate - freedom of religion. Now Republicans have done a masterful job of framing this issue in a way that says, 'we aren't against a Mosque being built, just it being built at Ground Zero.' Of course I find it interesting that someone like Sarah Palin, who is constantly defending her own religious views and deeming people living in liberal city's like New York and San Francisco as not being "real Americans", has now found it important to defend the 9/11 site, where more than 3,000 New Yorker's of all different religious backgrounds lost their lives, but I guess even blatant hypocrisy is viewed as an opinion in today's America.
If this issue had arose say last summer, it probably would have been a non-issue nationally but since an election is right around the corner, the right is taking full advantage of distorting the facts and dividing us once again as a nation. Because at first glance a Mosque at the Ground Zero site might seem in bad taste to the average American. You might think the argument that Muslim's have the right to build a Mosque, just not on the site where 16 Muslim hijackers attacked us in the name of Allah, but I guess you could also argue that a Catholic Church should not be built across from the Oklahoma City Building because Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. But I guess philosophical arguments like the previously mentioned don't hold much weight in a country that is predominantly Christian. So maybe we should look at the facts about the Mosque. First, the Muslim group that is planning to build the $100 million dollar multi-use facility, which will house a pool, gymnasium, a 500-seat auditorium and a Sept. 11 memorial, in addition to a prayer space, has operated in and around the Ground Zero site for more than 30 years - making them more victims of the 9/11 attacks than Sarah Palin, myself and most any other American living outside of the 212 area code. Second, the local Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, has received high praise from Jewish groups, not to mention the State Department has declared him a "bridge builder" between the Muslim and Christian world. But all of this has been overshadowed by the angry right who continue to try to make themselves out to be the protectors of the Ground Zero site, while also torch bearers for freedom of religion and the constitution in this country. Unfortunately, I don't think they can have it both ways and when they start to take up this issue with other Mosque's being built in other locations across the country - like the act of arson recently perpetrated at the construction site of a Tennessee Mosque - I think the moderates in this nation will begin to realize the true intentions of the Republicans to divide us at the polls and extinguish religious freedom beyond Christianity. Of course it might be too late for the November elections, but historically speaking I think the right will lose in the end, just like they have on most every other controversial issue they have defended throughout our nation's history (i.e. segregation).
When it comes right down to it, this issue for me has nothing to do with the supposed hallowed ground of the Ground Zero site, I mean for god sakes there are numerous bars, strip clubs and gambling parlors, and other establishments of perversion in the same location and no one seems to find those places distasteful. It is about Republicans once again dividing us as a nation and further disrespecting the religious and cultural freedoms of the rest of the world. It is about the right taking the focus off the fact that they have no real plan to move this country forward by dividing us on issues that are in reality non-issues. And yes, the majority of New Yorker's and Americans don't support the building of a Mosque at Ground Zero, but a majority of Americans also didn't support Medicare or Social Security, which have today become the two most popular pieces of legislation in our nation's history. A majority of Americans at one time also supported George W. Bush, the Iraq War and Segregation, but that doesn't mean Americans were right. Actually quite often public support for an issue is wrong in the long run, let's just hope our public leaders, just like they did during the Medicare and Social Security debate, ignore the will of the people and do not what the people support, but rather what is morally and constitutionally right - for that is what this country was founded upon.
And all this is coming from a person who if they had their way, would rid the world of all religions and turn every church, mosque and temple in this country into a Chuck E. Cheese - hey, it couldn't make them any less useless.
Good Night, and Good Luck!
1 comment:
As the 9/11 anniversary approaches, expect crocodile tears from 'moderate' Muslims who will quote cancelled verses from the Koran to explain how Islam is a religion of peace.
Don't believe a word of it, Islam encourages them to tell lies to fool gullible non-Muslims.
Their only loyalties and moral obligations are to one another, and they believe all non-Muslims are 'najis' - filth on a par with urine and feces.
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