Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair
MANHATTAN MOSQUE
In our country we cherish our freedom to worship as we please.
We don’t want anyone, least of all our government, messing with our religious beliefs. Fellow citizens have died in the past just to guarantee this and other freedoms.
Recently, America was confronted with the desire of a New York City based Muslim leader to create a mosque at the site we call “Ground Zero.”
Then the storm started and continues to rage on.
There has been so much written on this subject, much of it extreme in nature, that I felt I wanted to try to simplify the discussion if that is possible.
Consider this my attempt to do so:
1. Everyone has a right in this free country to pursue the their religious beliefs;
2. A Muslim leader has the right to build a mosque on any site for which he has legal title and where no laws exist to suggest such a structure cannot be built.
So the issue is a “settled issue” from a legal standpoint.
But in our country issues often have “standpoints” that might be considered even more important than the legal ones.
The Mosque proposed for the site where Muslims slaughtered thousands of Americans is just such an equation. It has raised the “fairness standard.” It has raised the “empathy standard.” It has raised the “common sense” standard.
Assuming that this particular Muslim leader and his followers are fine Americans who condemn the action of the 911 Muslim terrorists and that their intentions are completely honorable, the decision they have taken has not contributed to good feelings between Muslims and non-Muslims. It has aggravated already fragile feelings between those communities.
In the best light, the Muslim leader and his followers have misread America’s remaining open wound on the subject of what happened on September 11th. They have not given enough weight to the fragile emotions of families that lost loved ones on that day.
They have been both insensitive and inconsiderate.
The damage has been done.
The best course of action would be to apologize for the insensitivity and lack of consideration and build their new mosque in another location.
Of course, in our country, nothing is ever that easy.
The Mayor of New York City has weighed in on the issue. Even the President of the United States has put his oar into the turbulent water of this issue. Various lesser politicians have taken a poll of the mood of their constituents and beat this particular horse to death.
Now the Muslim group is in a position from which it is hard to back down.
The Mayor has found himself in a boiling cauldron.
And the President has had to morph his first statements so many times that everyone can see that he is simply trying to keep the high moral and legal ground without losing support from those who are outraged.
In the last analysis, the points I made above stand.
What the Muslims want to do is legal. If they do not develop a keener sense of sensitivity to the issue, they will build their Mosque.
It would be a very bad decision.
