The mosque debate ignores facts and reality

Sep 2 2010

The mosque debate ignores facts and reality

As the debate continues over the proposed plan to build a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, it becomes clear to me that a combination of politics, misinformation and imprecise polling mixed with a heavy dose of genuine dislike for foreigners, especially non-Christians, has created a toxic cocktail that’s difficult for me to swallow.

I have no doubt that a majority of Americans would prefer to have the “facility” built elsewhere, or more accurately, nowhere.

I also believe that the same majority routinely honks — when it suits their needs — about upholding the Constitution and the right for property owners to do what they want with their property.

Political panderers — certainly among the honkers — and the bleating sheep that follow them ignore the facts and perpetrate fear mongering and spreading false information.

The proposed project, more an educational center than a mosque, raises issues:

As columnist Leonard Robinson wrote: A CNN poll showed that 68 percent of Americans opposed a plan by “a group of Muslims in the U.S.” to build “a mosque” two blocks from the World Trade Center site. I wonder what the results might look like if pollsters had phrased the question differently — if they had asked, say, whether “a group of Americans” should be allowed to build “a center promoting moderate, peaceful Islam.”
It is two New York City blocks away from “Ground Zero,” and a mosque already operates in close proximity to the proposed site.
At another site of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Pentagon, Muslims worship each day at a memorial chapel.

Some questions to ponder:

Would people protest a Roman Catholic Church being built near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City? (Timothy McVeigh was raised Catholic.)
Why aren’t the darlings of constitutional and property rights — the Tea Party pack —speaking out in defense of the proposed mosque?
How can U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., say that he supports the constitutional rights of the citizenry but not rights of these citizens? (If you answered “up for re-election,” you get an “A.”)

If you talk long enough about the issue, people seem to land in the same place: all Muslims are dangerous; all Middle-Easterners are dangerous (even though only 25 percent of all Muslims hail from the Middle East); the Koran is dangerous; and all non-Christians are dangerous.

Last week in the terrorist hotbed of Mayfield, Ky., some 250 residents cheered when the city leaders denied a proposal for a mosque in the city because of concerns about “parking.”

There are a lot of dangerous things in the world.

This New York mosque proposal isn’t one of them.

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