Should Muslims Get A Mosque At Ground Zero?

Should New York build an Islamic mosque near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan?  Amidst economic crisis, oil catastrophe, and the plummeting popularity of a president this heated debate has exploded onto the scene in recent weeks.  Folks keep asking me what I think, so I figured I should formulate some kind of educlayted opinion.

The argument has already gotten pretty nasty since the announcement of the project.  The issue remained somewhat quiet until a recent vote by Community Board 1 came down 29-1 in favor of the worship/community center.  A quarter of the board members abstained.

This issue comes down to two main questions.  Should Muslim leaders pursue this project?  Do they have a right to build a mosque there?  Everything beyond those two factors falls into the camp of emotions, lots of emotion.  As one protestor stated at the board hearing: “This house of evil will be the birthplace of the next terrorist event.”

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A recent caller to a talk show on a radio station which I will leave unnamed objected to the project with this statement: “Would they build a monument for Hitler next to Auschwitz?”  That’s an intense reaction.  Some folks find that comparison incredibly offensive while others find it accurate.  Nazism was short-lived and brutal.  These days the beliefs and symbols of Hitler’s regime are outlawed in Germany.  I find the Holocaust comparison somewhat off for this debate.   

Perhaps a better example would be the Japanese-American conflict of the 1940s.  It’s hard for this generation to understand the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941, but that event felt a lot like 9/11 and cost a comparable number of lives.  What would you say about a project to build a Shinto temple a few hundred yards from where the U.S.S. Arizona was sunk by Japanese fighters?

Nearly a decade after Pearl Harbor, Japan and the U.S. were building a healthy relationship.  Could you imagine a Shinto priest pushing for a facility in that spot?  How would Americans have reacted then?  Let’s flip the scenario.  How do you think Japanese people would have felt about a big, ol’ catholic church right on the doorstep to the Hiroshima memorial?  Why would any American even promote such a plan?  Sounds like a slap in the face.

Allow me one more distinction between 1941 and 2011.  Pearl Harbor was a military facility staffed by men and women serving their country.  The World Trade Center was filled with civilians just working and trying to live out their free lives.

Islam is accepted by our pluralistic society, as are many other beliefs.  We tolerate opposing beliefs, but we’re under no obligation to celebrate them.  Muslims who want this facility have rights in America because heroes of this nation have shed blood by the millions to guarantee freedom.  To mere suggestion of this facility does not seem like the workings of peace but a stirring of conflict.  Lots of folks say, “Build a mosque, just NOT THERE!”  Yet there’s another significant fact that warrants incredulity. 

The Imam and company claiming a desire to “bridge the gap” between Muslims and the rest of America want to break ground on this facility to celebrate Islam on September 11, 2011–the 10th anniversary of the attack.