... from Barbara Nicolosi over at Church of the Masses about the controversy regarding the (possible) construction of a mosque near Ground Zero:
I was terribly impressed four years ago to visit the Holy Land. Beside nearly every Christian and Jewish holy site, the Muslims have built a mosque. These mosques scream the call to prayer five times a day and make quiet meditation and celebration of the mysteries of our faith nearly impossible. There are seven in the Old City of Jerusalem alone. They go off in syncopated fashion during the day and almost made me crazy. A member of the Knesset noted to me that the mosques are a provocation, and in the minds of the Islamic faithful, they are a sign of Islam’s domination over its enemies. Part of me thinks that a mosque at 9/11 would be a way of giving succor to the millions of Muslims who hate us as the great Satan and cheered the Towers going down.Read the entire post.
I am less interested in whether Muslims have a right to build a mosque at 9/11. (And that they might is not as cut and dry as the appeal to 1st Amendment freedoms would have it seem. There is loads of legal precedent for individual property rights being ceded to the common good. You can’t build a bar on your property if there is a school nearby. My grandfather lost our family farm so Waterville, ME could build an airport. (They never actually did.) The Supreme Court ruling in Kelo a few years back said that property rights could be voided if a town could make more taxes by seizing the land and dedicating it to another use….In fact, the City of West Hollywood recently denied my church from opening a pre-school because of what one Council member referred to as the Catholic Church’s pernicious views on the gay community. Really. We are appealing it.) But whether there is a legal right to build it, this seems to me to not be the moment. The terrible grief and horror is still too fresh. America has not even rebuilt on the 9/11 site yet. The Freedom Tower is still on the drawing board. The Russian Orthodox Church that was destroyed at Ground Zero is still waiting to be rebuilt. It seems to me inappropriate that a mosque would come first.
I recently had someone insist I was an intolerant bigot and fearful of all Muslims because I see this as a provocation (or, at the very least, a complete lack of tact - even if you give them the total benefit of the doubt here). She insisted that "people like [me]" were afraid of all Muslims and think they're all terrorists. I kept insisting that this is part of a pattern of Muslims throughout history; when they conquer a new place, they set up mosques on or near a holy site. In America, because we are so post-Christian, people consider this place to be holy. I even gave examples of not just Cordova but the Temple Mount and the Hagia Sophia off the top of my head. I said that *because* of that kind of history, this was not going to build bridges. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt about building bridges, someone not going purely on emotion has to at least admit that it's bad PR. But she could not admit that there is any reason aside from bigotry and racism and hatred behind disagreeing about this mosque.
What she doesn't know (even after 12 years of online correspondence with me, not to mention personal emails and even Christmas cards annually), and what I *won't bring up with her*, is that my brother in law and his whole family are Iranian Muslims. But because I refuse to play the "I know this person" card (which I think is a total cop-out in an argument), she doesn't know just how foolish her statement is. And she's stated emphatically on her blog (without naming me) that she would not apologize for that comment; she tries making it seem fine because she won't apologize for sticking up for Catholic priests in general. But I maintain that I will not bring up my extended family because in a real debate it shouldn't make a difference. If one cannot argue the merits of their case without pulling out their friends' diversity, then they don't really have a point.
(Not even signing my usual name on my comments here, by the way.)
Posted by: Some Catholic Lady | Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 12:14 PM