It's not a mosque, and it's not at Ground Zero

Cordoba House- the Islamic community center that is supposed to be built two blocks from Ground Zero at a location that cannot even be seen from there- has become a cause celebre among many on the Right and elsewhere on the political spectrum who simply don't know what they're talking about.

This is not about sensitivity to the victims of 9/11. This is about willful perversity on the part of those who object to the building of the center at a location not at Ground Zero- or even "a stone's throw" from Ground Zero. Again, t's two blocks away- and the two sites are not visible one to another.

So why should the construction of the Cordoba Center on the proposed site be offensive- especially since there's already an actual mosque only a block further from Ground Zero than the proposed site of the Center?

A friend who is adamently opposed to the construction of the Center points out that dust and DNA from the blast would have fallen there. This is true. But it seems to me that opposition to the Center- and the claim that its construction at the proposed site, blocks from Ground Zero, is somehow "insensitive-"can nevertheless be justified only if one maintains that all Muslims, or Islam itself, is responsible for 9/11, and not merely Al Quaeda, Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atta, and the other actual perpetrators.

I would suggest that to make that particular argument would be to be guilty of pure, unadulterated religious bigotry, and would be much more in accord with the values of Al Quaeda than of the Bill of Rights and the American tradition.

Comments

Unknown said…
Great satire with a message. Just because you have the freedom to do something doesn't mean you should do it.

Pork Plant Opens Next to Mosque Next to Ground Zero

http://rancornews.com/nymosque.html
Not great satire. In fact, really ugly stuff, which assumes that all Muslims or even Islam itself- rather than Al Quaeda and the perpetrators- were responsible for 9/11. And that, of course, is sheer religious bigotry, and about as un-American as... well, Osama bin Laden.