Ground Zero mosque: Obama inflames the debate

For one day, President Obama took the most “impressive and commendable” stand of his presidency, said Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com. One day later, he took it back. In a stirring defense of the proposed mosque and Muslim community center near Ground Zero, Obama declared last week that Muslims “have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.” For Obama, this was a rare display of cojones, said Tunku Varadarajan in TheDailyBeast.com, given that polls show nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose construction of the mosque, and that efforts to block other mosques have sprung up from California to Connecticut. But when the comments caused a predictable backlash, Obama rapidly sought “to placate the anti-mosque opposition,” explaining that he wasn’t commenting on the “wisdom” of constructing the mosque, just on the “right” to do so.

It’s the wisdom of this project we critics have questioned all along, said National Review Online in an editorial. Yes, Muslims have the First Amendment right to “worship as they please.” The question is whether it’s sensitive, or necessary, or wise to build a 13-story Islamic community center and mosque where nearly 3,000 Americans were slaughtered by terrorists “acting in the name of Islam.” If the supposedly moderate imam behind the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, really wanted to foster understanding between Islam and Americans, he “would keep a respectful distance.” As “hallowed ground,” said Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post, Ground Zero belongs “to those who suffered and died there.” For this same reason, Pope John Paul II ordered Carmelite nuns to abandon a planned convent at Auschwitz, after Jews complained that it was their hallowed ground. “Common decency and respect for the sacred” require Rauf and his backers to build elsewhere.

How far away would suit you? said Michael Kinsley in TheAtlantic.com. The proposed mosque isn’t going “right on top of Ground Zero,” but more than two blocks away. Opponents seem to feel that Islam is so foul it must be banished to a more tasteful distance. “How much farther away does it have to be in order to avoid the stain of sacrilege? Will five blocks do?” Ten? The Republican politicians leading this national orgy of bigotry concede that, sure, Muslims have a right to build their mosque where they’d like, but shouldn’t exercise it, because public opinion is against it. In other words, freedom of religion, and other rights guaranteed in the Constitution, should be exercised only if first ratified by “a popularity contest.” Demagogues like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin may not realize it, said William Saletan in Slate.com, but it wasn’t Islam that attacked America on 9/11. We were attacked that day by 19 fanatics who’d pledged allegiance to al Qaida and Osama bin Laden. To equate them with Islam “is to give them the power to define the religion of 1 billion people.” That’s both wrong and strategically foolish, for it will only alienate Islamic allies and moderates.

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You’re glossing over an inconvenient reality, said Russ Douthat in The New York Times. Rauf may be a “moderate Muslim” by global standards, but “global standards and American standards are not the same thing.” Rauf once called America “an accessory to the crime” of 9/11, saying our government’s support of oppressive Arab regimes had helped give rise to al Qaida. He also won’t say whether he considers Hamas a terrorist group. That’s hardly surprising, said Martin Peretz in The New Republic. “The dominant structures of Islam”—from the mosques and madrasas to most of the governments that “rule in its name”—preach intolerance of other religions, and rarely if ever denounce terrorism committed against Jews or Americans. Islam has a centuries-old history of offering Christians and Jews a choice between conversion to Islam or death, and we don’t need a mosque marking terrorism’s greatest triumph.

The proposed mosque poses no threat to anyone, said Jean Marbella in the Baltimore Sun. In fact, the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” is envisioned as a community center aimed at improving understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, and would include a prayer space along with amenities like a gymnasium, a swimming pool, and an auditorium. It would be built not on “sacred ground” but in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory store, surrounded by Ground Zero bars, Ground Zero pizza shops, Ground Zero peep shows, and Ground Zero nail salons. If these cheesy emporiums fail to show disrespect to the place where 3,000 people died, it’s hard to fathom how a center devoted to prayer and tolerance will.