Mosque

So, some people are all in a tizzy about the building of a mosque that is two blocks from Ground Zero. Why, you might ask? Because it is a mosque that is the worship space of Muslims and Muslims caused 9/11. But, it wasn’t Muslims that caused 9/11, it was terrorists who happened to be Muslim, you can argue. After all, reasonable people can’t blame a whole entire religion for the actions of a small percentage that are on the radical fringe. If that were the case, then ALL Christians are to blame for the actions of a small percentage of Christians who are on the radical fringe. Who are these Christians? Why the Ku Klux Klan, of course! They consider themselves Christian. Devout Christians. They feel they are following the will of God when they torture, kill, burn and otherwise commit terrorist acts against those who look different than they do and are descedant from Africa and not Europe. So are all Christians to blame for the acts of this radical fringe? No, they aren’t. So that means that not all Muslims are to blame for the acts of a radical fringe. Correct?

But wait. Shouldn’t they be more considerate about how New Yorkers are feeling and just not build their mosque so close to Ground Zero? How is this for an explanation…

It is a simple building that is two blocks from Ground Zero.  Have you ever lived in a major city?  Do you really know everything that is going on two blocks away?  It isn’t like they are building it in Ground Zero or across the street.  It is two blocks away!  It might as well be two miles or twenty miles away.  You can’t stand at Ground Zero and see it.

Besides it isn’t so much a mosque as a Muslim community center. It will have a basket ball court, culinary school, rooms to host movie nights, performances, dinners, and a couple of rooms for prayer. It’s the equivalent of a YMCA. But calling it a “mosque” conjures up all kinds of images and will perpetuate fear and anxiety and be a more exciting news story. Then they, the news organizations, can talk about it insistently instead of focusing on more important news like….wait….what is going on world? Hard telling since we seem so obsessed with the mosque thing. But it seems to be that there are things still happening in Washington we could discuss. The oil spill still needs to be cleaned up in the gulf. There is MAJOR flooding in Pakistan and people could really use our help to survive that crisis. Eggs are being recalled because DeCoster still hasn’t learned his lesson despite being fined heavily for numerous violations of safety, sanitation, cruelty, etc. But let’s not pay attention to any of that. Rather, instead, let’s focus on a community center being built for Muslims that happens to contain a mosque. Yeah. That is a newsworthy story.

Tomorrow I shall get into freedom of religion….