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A mosque at the heart of America
The New York City community board endorsed the Cordoba House, a community center and mosque planned for construction near Ground Zero.
Significant opposition has emerged against the project. Sarah Palin even weighed in this weekend, tweeting, "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing."
Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero?
In 1790, a year before the Bill of Rights was ratified, George Washington wrote a famous letter to Moses Sexias, the warden of Tuoro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. In it, he described the United States as a land "which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." Quoting the prophet Micah, he assured the good warden that, here at least, "every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid" (Micah 4:4). So ecumenical an attitude might have seemed remarkable coming from the president of a land supposedly founded by Puritans and other similarly intolerant religious folk, were it not that there was long-standing precedent for it already.
In the "Flushing Remonstrance," a letter drafted in 1657 to Governor Peter Stuyvesant in response to his request that they expel all Quakers from their community, a group of English farmers in what is now Queens, New York, offered their own impromptu declaration of religious good faith:
The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, soe love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage. And because our Saviour sayeth it is impossible but that offences will come, but woe unto him by whom they cometh, our desire is not to offend one of his little ones, in whatsoever form, name or title hee appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker, but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them, desiring to doe unto all men as we desire all men should doe unto us, which is the true law both of Church and State; for our Saviour sayeth this is the law and the prophets.
Today, the Flushing Remonstrance lives in a gold-lined vault far below the surface of the state capitol in Albany, New York. A few years ago, the Town of Flushing asked to have it back on the grounds that--as the most religiously and ethnically diverse community on earth, with over one hundred different languages spoken daily on its streets--they had earned the right to house and display it in one of their many historic buildings. To date, Albany has refused to part with it. It seems that there are two attitudes toward what it means to "protect" such a document. Albany would keep its talent buried in the ground, while Flushing would use it. For what? Presumably to make more vines and fig trees. What else is it for?
I would apologize for what must seem a long digression--if it were anything of the sort. For the question, "Should we allow a mosque to be built near Ground Zero?" is really another way of asking, "Do we bury the principle of religious liberty this country was founded upon, or do we use it? Sarah Palin would have us believe that it is a stab to the heart to erect a mosque within a stone's throw of the former Twin Towers. I say, the closer to the heart of America any mosque is built the better. In fact, it might have been better to build a mosque there in the first place. If we want to protect the liberties which are the bedrock of American spiritual and public life, we have to offer them to others. The prophet Micah understood this. Washington understood it. And the farmers of Flushing understood it, too. Like happiness, only those things which we offer to another do we actually get to keep for ourselves.
By
Clark Strand
|
July 19, 2010; 8:24 PM ET
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Posted by: asm_ith | July 23, 2010 9:06 AM
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For the prior poster, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the Nazis. America embraced germans after the fall of the third reich and differenciated between people of german heritage and those that harbored nazi sympathies. To tionk we are at war with "islam" and the 1.57 billion muslims is rediculous. We are at war with under 50,000 radicals world wide who hide behind religion and if they didn't have that, would find something else. Bin Laden was not a religious leader,etc. The 7 million Muslims in Arerica have not turned on our country. You will hear cases of 1 man here, 1 man there, but to cast doubt on peaceful people practicing freedom of religion, pay taxes, ex is willful ignorance. I say this as a man who lived in NYC during the bombing. Learn more about progressive mosques and everday muslims in America and you will find much in common.
Posted by: cadam72 | July 22, 2010 10:27 AM
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Mr Clark Strand, whilst you are at it, here's a suggestion for you, why don't you encourage Islamonazis to build a 13 story cultural center, near to what is left of the World Trade Center Complex. That would be a shrine to Adolf Hitler and would praise the 9/11 hijackers as standing in the traditions of 13th Waffen SS Division Handschar and would include detailed working scale models of concentration camps and could have computerized simulation facilities for visitors, where one could for example clear out the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto using flamethrowers.
ϟϟ HANDSCHAR ϟϟ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0io4ygniJp0
Why is it when something has the world "Islam" connected to it, supposed "liberals" in the United States fall over themselves in a rush to support it, no matter what type of filth it is ?
Could this be the answer ?
" But though not much interested in the ‘theory’ of pacifism, I am interested in the psychological processes by which pacifists who have started out with an alleged horror of violence end up with a marked tendency to be fascinated by the success and power of Nazism. Even pacifists who wouldn’t own to any such fascination are beginning to claim that a Nazi victory is desirable in itself. "
George Orwell: ‘Pacifism and the War’
First published: Partisan Review. — GB, London. — August-September 1942.
Posted by: Adrian_Wainer | July 20, 2010 2:07 PM
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Sarah Palin believes that it is a stab to the heart to erect a mosque within a stone's throw of the Ground Zero. I wonder how she would react to Muslims who feel it is a stab in their heart to have American troops stationed around places they believe are important to their religion. Would she she support withdrawing troops & bases from their countries? Would she support withdrawing our support of governments that aren't necessarily supported by the people of those countries?