I don’t have anything helpful to say on the ethical, public relations, or interfaith amity questions raised by the ground zero mosque. Cathy Young takes one view, [UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens in Slate takes a somewhat different one, and this Ottawa Citizen op-ed takes yet another] and I know there are others, but I leave that question to people who specialize more in such matters.
But the legal issue is open and shut. The Free Exercise Clause means that the government may not discriminate against an entity because of its religious denomination. The Free Speech Clause means that the government generally may not discriminate an entity because of what it says or teaches (and that applies to discrimination against religious speakers as much as to discrimination against secular speakers). There are some exceptions to the latter principle, but none apply here.
This means that the government may not refuse a zoning permit to a group because it’s Muslim, or Tea Party, or Socialist, or anti-gay-rights. It may not try to use landmarking law to bar the group from reconstructing a building, if the law is being used because of the group’s message. (A religious organization may in some situations and in some jurisdictions get an exemption even when a neutral, generally applicable law is being applied to it for religion- and speech-independent reasons; but here the landmarking law was clearly being applied precisely because the mosque was a mosque, so the Free Exercise Clause’s prohibition on religious discrimination comes into play.)
Nor can the New York Public Service Commission force Consolidated Edison to refuse to sell its property to a religious or ideological because of the entity’s religious or ideological affiliation. A private property owner might have the right to discriminate based on religion or ideology in its choice of buyers. (I don’t know New York law on the subject, and I don’t know whether federal housing law would apply to discrimination based on religion in sale of non-residential property.) But the government may not force or coercively pressure private property owners to so discriminate.
Naturally, the fact that many people might be offended by the presence of a mosque not far from Ground Zero doesn’t change the constitutional analysis. Nor does the fact that people remain free to build mosques elsewhere; content-based and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech can’t generally be justified on the grounds that they are limited in location, and neither can religious discrimination.
These are basic principles of American free speech law, and of American religious freedom law. They help protect all of us, liberal or conservative, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist. Carving out exceptions from them will jeopardize all of us. We shouldn’t sacrifice these basic American principles — principles that help make America free and great, and distinguish it from most other countries — for the sake of symbolism.
Anon21 says:
Well said, Prof. Volokh. I sincerely hope that reactionary forces in New York City and State don’t force the backers of the Cordoba House project to resort to litigation in order to vindicate their rights.
August 9, 2010, 12:00 pmDilan Esper says:
I was expecting this post, sooner or later, and it says exactly what I expected it to. Cathy Young is pretty much right too.
August 9, 2010, 12:08 pmSteve says:
I agree that it is a really straightforward First Amendment issue. If the First Amendment doesn’t protect your freedom to use your building as a house of worship, it doesn’t protect much.
My conservative friends who oppose the mosque (I have several who don’t) tend to respond to the First Amendment argument by arguing that Islam doesn’t count as a religion for First Amendment purposes because it’s a death cult, or whatever.
Some politicians are trying to have it both ways, by saying they have the right to build it but that they should voluntarily refrain in order to avoid “offending” people. Thankfully folks like Mayor Bloomberg have the courage to stand up for the core values of the First Amendment.
August 9, 2010, 12:09 pmHmonrdick says:
Prof. Volokh, you say: “Nor does the fact that people remain free to build mosques elsewhere; content-based and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech can’t generally be justified on the grounds that they are limited in location, and neither can religious discrimination.” Your use of the word “generally” seems to indicate that, in some limited circumstances, content-based and viewpoint-based restrictions on speech can in fact be justified if they are limited in location. The abortion clinic “buffer-line” series of cases seems to demonstrate this. It seems to me, therefore, that your “open and shut” conclusion on the legal issue involved here, that of location only, is a bit overblown. If I’m wrong, please tell me why.
[EV responds: The exception is for restrictions justified by concerns about "secondary effects," such as reduced property values; it has been applied only to sexually themed business. For more on that, see here.
As to the most talked-about abortion clinic buffer case, Colorado v. Hill, it operated on the prmise that the restriction was content-neutral; I'm not sure that's right, but it can't be extended to an obviously content-, viewpoint-, and religion-based restriction such as the one proposed here. Moreover, the zone of exclusion there was far smaller than the one involved here: Hill upheld an eight-foot no-approach zone -- not a two-or-more-block exclusion zone such as the one that's apparently being contemplated by those are opposing the mosque -- and left anti-abortion picketers free to picket, leaflet, and speak just a few feet away. Madsen, which upheld a 36-foot buffer zone (in a case where anti-abortion picketers had in the past blocked entrances to the clinic), likewise left people free to picket across the street.]
August 9, 2010, 12:15 pmAdam Kamp says:
Steve:
REALLY? People say this? WOW.
[EV says: Check out the quotes from Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey in this Talking Points Memo story, Pat Robertson in this Media Matters story (with video), from one Jerry Gordon in this Fox News story, and from one Diana Serafin in this New York Times story.]
August 9, 2010, 12:17 pmHouston Lawyer says:
It seems these days that first amendment protection isn’t what it used to be.
August 9, 2010, 12:17 pmMark Jones says:
Perhaps the opponents of the mosque should simply convince someone in government there to condemn the site as blighted, seize it under eminent domain, and then hand it over to another private party who will then build something else (anything else) useful and valuable to the community on it.
Given the…flexible nature of many eminent domain laws these days, I’m sure it’s feasible.
August 9, 2010, 12:23 pmyankee says:
Especially when the symbolism in question is the vicious and bigoted symbolism of “eleven of you committed this terrorist act, so we’re going to hold all 800 million of you responsible.” I wish you were willing to say as much.
August 9, 2010, 12:25 pmSteve says:
Your tongue-in-cheek idea is behind the curve, as one of the right-wing gubernatorial candidates has already pledged to do exactly that. Along the lines discussed in EV’s post, however, this would be a First Amendment violation just like all the other proposed “solutions.”
August 9, 2010, 12:28 pmMalvolio says:
How is that “having it both ways”? There are a lot of jerk-ass things each of us is legally entitled to say but should, and typically do, refrain from saying.
It is an open question what the Cordoba people are trying to say by locating their new center where they are, but whatever they are trying to say, well, we’ll all defend to the death their right to say it. Won’t we?
August 9, 2010, 12:28 pmW. J. J. Hoge says:
An act that may be legal may also be shameful.
August 9, 2010, 12:30 pmStacy says:
I fully agree with this post – the only response that comports with the Constitution and Bill of Rights is to hold our collective noses and allow it.
We should not, though, be blind to the fact that it’s the same kind of thing, with the same motivation, as building a nazi party headquarters across the street from Auschwitz. These people are playing with fire, and all our houses are at risk when it gets out of control
August 9, 2010, 12:32 pmByomtov says:
Adam Kamp says:
Yes, they do.
August 9, 2010, 12:33 pmgasman says:
The cheering crowds of muslims that day suggest that there might be some substantial fraction among the 800 million who would be our enemy if they had the chance.
August 9, 2010, 12:33 pmSteve says:
It takes an imagination to think they are trying to “say” anything with the location. There’s nothing particularly symbolic about the location; no one thinks the Burlington Coat Factory (the former occupant) was located on “hallowed ground.” There’s a large downtown Muslim community that hasn’t had a real place of worship for quite some time, that’s your explanation for the location.
August 9, 2010, 12:36 pmSteve says:
Do you, like gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, also fantasize that the Muslims will be decorating a wall with the faces of the 9/11 hijackers? For a dose of sanity, please refer to Jeffrey Goldberg’s cogent post: If He could, Bin Laden Would Bomb the Cordoba Initiative.
August 9, 2010, 12:40 pmHalcyon Day says:
Discretion is the better part of valor.
The Cordoba Initiative’s constitutional right to place its mosque near Ground Zero is unquestioned. That being said, the Cordoba Initiative should be more attentive and sensitive to the wounds of 9/11. It can build its mosque anywhere in Manhattan. Why at that specific site?
Newspapers had a constitutional right to publish the pictures of Mohammed. That does not mean that they should have done so.
August 9, 2010, 12:40 pmLymis says:
Oh please. It’s more like building a Lutheran church across from Auschwitz, and people objecting because the Nazis were German and so was Martin Luther.
I’d agree that it would be inflammatory to build an Al Qaeda Recruiting Station anywhere in Manhattan, but a mosque? The only reason to object is a misguided (I would say stupid) equivalency between Islam in general and the particular action of the 9/11 terrorists.
If you’re going to declare the site as sacred ground to be venerated, I’d go after the nearby strip clubs rather than the nearby churches. Which, of course, might ALSO be an impermissible violation of the Constitution.
August 9, 2010, 12:41 pmMike says:
I forget, have they already signed the docs and handed over the money for the land? I’m somewhat surprised that some rich conservative hasn’t stepped in and offered 10x what the property is worth to put something not a mosque on it.
August 9, 2010, 12:43 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Steve,
Some politicians are trying to have it both ways, by saying they have the right to build it but that they should voluntarily refrain in order to avoid “offending” people. Thankfully folks like Mayor Bloomberg have the courage to stand up for the core values of the First Amendment.
Those “core values” being that anyone who has a right to do anything is therefore “right” to do it?
What you call “having it both ways” is for me the only sensible position in cases like this: You can do whatever you’ve a right to do, but ought to consider the impact on other people; and if that impact is severe and yet you go ahead, we have a right to think what we please about your action. Cf. the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz.
August 9, 2010, 12:45 pmBaseballhead says:
Maybe it’s a nice big piece of property. Maybe they got a good deal. Maybe it’s centrally located. Maybe their first choice fell through. What does it matter?
We don’t step on religions peacefully practiced by millions of people within our own borders, through legislation or otherwise. We’re not a restrictive Muslim nation. I wish people would stop trying to make us more like one.
August 9, 2010, 12:48 pmKelly K. says:
The fact that they have the right and ability in this country to build such a mosque in that location speaks volumes about the fundamental beauty of our system. I daresay if you proposed a Catholic church in the heart of Mecca, you would not receive such a warm reaction.
The fact that this particular imam wishes to build his mosque in such a location speaks volumes about his particular lack of good sense, decorum, and decency.
August 9, 2010, 12:50 pmJon Rowe says:
Islam IS a religion according to the original meaning of the First Amendment.
“It has pleased the Providence of the first Cause, the Universal Cause, that Abraham should give religion not only to Hebrews but to Christians and Mahomitans, the greatest part of the modern civilized world.”
– John Adams to M.M. Noah, July 31, 1818.
August 9, 2010, 12:51 pmJon Rowe says:
I daresay if you proposed a Catholic church in the heart of Mecca, you would not receive such a warm reaction.That’s because while S. Arabia is a “Muslim Nation,” America is not a “Christian Nation.”
August 9, 2010, 12:52 pmpc says:
Yes, but the closest strip club is one block further north. Not that I’ve ever been there…
August 9, 2010, 12:53 pmthirdeblue says:
Why do we even allow Muslims in Manhattan at all? The very existence of brown people in Manhattan is tantamount to a declaration of jihad against America.
August 9, 2010, 12:57 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Halcyon Day,
I agree with your first graf, but this:
Newspapers had a constitutional right to publish the pictures of Mohammed. That does not mean that they should have done so.
I’m not so sure. When many people have been murdered for trying to say something, there’s an argument for going on saying it. There aren’t many things that would persuade me to, say, burn the American flag; still, if someone vowed to kill all flag-burners, and started actually doing so, I think I’d burn a flag, and I’d bet good money that so would a lot of Americans.
August 9, 2010, 1:00 pmpc says:
Well, it’s complicated. On the one hand, all Muslims (brown people) are terrorists. On the other hand, what will happen to the street carts that make the tasty chicken and rice?
August 9, 2010, 1:03 pmWaste93 says:
Not exactly. Islam is a system of religion, politics, and judicial all wrapped into one. The parts are not seperable. So it may be a relgion, but it is not solely a relgious system.
August 9, 2010, 1:04 pmStacy says:
I’m not going to respond to your other comment. This explanation for the location may turn out to be true, but you’re dealing with a population of people to whom symbolism is far more important than it is to the average non-Muslim American. It is simply not credible to suggest they chose the spot because it’s available, with no reference to what else is nearby.
August 9, 2010, 1:05 pmDanInAustin says:
It’s kind of silly trying to deny that Islam is a religion, but is there a line at some point where, if a mosque is used to incite violence against the US that it could be shutdown? This just happened in Hamburg with the mosque that was involved in the 9/11 planning.
If the Pope declared war on the United States could you prevent the Catholic church from building any new churches?
August 9, 2010, 1:09 pmBrian says:
You’re smart, Eugene, which makes all the more disappointing your commission of utterly worthless preachy sanctimony on the order of “We shouldn’t sacrifice these basic American principles,” blah blah, blah. We’ve already heard enough of that crap from Bloomberg.
While you’re likely right in your legal analysis, the legal case for discriminating against triumphalist political Islam is better than you allow. We are presently at war with Islamists, so our national security/war-making powers are implicated. The exercise of eminent domain by the federal government – turning the area a national monument excluding Park51 – would likely fail because we are not at war with these particular Islamists, thus the connection with the federal government’s war-making powers too attenuated. But the case nevertheless deserves a more intelligent analysis than you gave it. “Symbolism,” for one thing, can significantly bolster the enemy in a time of war.
Contemplate this: Perhaps you, Mr. Volokh, have at least as much to learn about the meaning of America from those who oppose Park51, as they have to learn from you.
August 9, 2010, 1:12 pmOwen H. says:
Heck, we were told over and over that not publishing them was cowardice and pandering.
August 9, 2010, 1:12 pmByomtov says:
MDT,
Cf. the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz.
Now, I hate to start a threadjack, but:
The Carmelite convent had as an explicit purpose praying for those killed at Auschwitz.
Roman Catholicism is hierarchical to a degree that Islam is not.
The Roman Catholic church, and the church in Poland in particular, very clearly bears a great deal of historical responsibility for Auschwitz.
So there is a huge, IMO, gap between the two situations, that makes them really not comparable. If this particular group of Muslims had a history of encouraging anti-American violence, and then wanted to pray for the 9/11 victims, you would have a case.
August 9, 2010, 1:13 pmJeffDG says:
Honestly, I think all the religious arguments are completely superfluous.
This is a property rights issue plain and simple. If the property owner wants to build, or sell to someone who wants to build, anything on the site, it’s none of the government’s business.
How many of those criticizing the decision of the historic landmarks board (not sure of the proper name) would be screaming bloody murder if that same board stopped someone from tearing down a building to put up a supermarket or office building? They’d be claiming it was a stealth “taking” without compensation.
August 9, 2010, 1:13 pmpc says:
Is there special symbolism in using an old Burlington Coat Factory building for Muslims?
August 9, 2010, 1:14 pmConstantin says:
Ah yes, NYC, that haven of freedom for property rights.
Let’s not kid ourselves on two points. One, that if this were a religious building that the city didn’t want built, they’d find a way to stop it. And two, its construction has nothing to do with building bridges and a everything to do with using our combination of liberty, goodwill, naïveté, and lack of survival instinct to declare victory for what happened on 9/11. And on the merits, I can’t really disagree with that conclusion.
August 9, 2010, 1:18 pmBob Stump says:
Islam is a governmental system. The religious aspect is but a sidebar. Radical Muslim elements have declared jihad on the United States. So New York Mayor Bloomberg is defending Islam’s right to build a command center next to Ground Zero. But locations of mosques are immaterial to the instant case. No enemy fortifications should be permitted anywhere on U.S. soil. Will it take another massive death toll in another domestic terrorist attack to get that message across?
August 9, 2010, 1:24 pmGuy says:
When did blatant, undisguised, bigotry become okay again? Disgusting.
I can’t think of anything substantive to add while still remaining civil.
August 9, 2010, 1:25 pmFloridan says:
That’s because anyone, conservative or otherwise, with the wealth to pay 10 times the going price for the site is unlikely to do it just to placate the rubes.
August 9, 2010, 1:26 pmD.T. says:
I’m sure everyone realizes that many religious practices—human sacrifice, child mutilation, ritual killing, etc.—,and thereby the religions that hold them as sacraments may, and should, be prohibited. Any practice not allowed by people outside of the religion should not allowed as a religious practice by adherents.
Whether or not building a “we pwn you” monument at the site of a mass murder propagated by a religion meets that exception is something those in love with mental gymnastics will have to argue over.
D.T.
August 9, 2010, 1:26 pmSteve says:
I have no idea if Muslims are more or less attuned to symbolism than the average Joe, but symbolism sure seems awfully important to the people who oppose the mosque. Awful lot of blanket statements being made here about a religion that is practiced by, what, 23% of the world’s population?
August 9, 2010, 1:29 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Yes, it is.
(Or, in other words, please don’t use the passive voice; what you mean is that you personally don’t believe it. Which is your right, but I don’t know why anybody should take you seriously.)
August 9, 2010, 1:33 pmJeffDG says:
So? Just because people abuse processes like zoning rules and historic designations for their benefit doesn’t change the principle that such tactics are wrong.
August 9, 2010, 1:35 pmmantis says:
“Should not allowed as a religious practice?” Not really a fan of the 1st Amendment, are you D.T.?
I don’t allow snake handling at my house. Should the practice be legally prohibited in churches? We don’t eat any meat at my house. Should kosher butchering be outlawed? I certainly would not tolerate bigotry against homosexuals or Jews at my house. Should Leviticus and the anti-Judaic parts of the Gospels be outlawed?
August 9, 2010, 1:37 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Not exactly. Islam is, in fact, a religion. Like Judaism (but unlike Christianity, at least as far as most modern Christians are concerned) it may not be purely about what you believe. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a religion; it just means that the modern Christian view of religion is narrower than others.
August 9, 2010, 1:40 pmJon Rowe says:
Well the elements of Islam that are a “religion” are what is protected under our system. We could say the same thing about Judaism or Christianity. They have a right to exist and practice under our system and are subject to all of the privileges that the law gives. But the moment they try to practice rules written in Deuteronomy or Leviticus about stoning those who would worship false gods, Jews and Christians lose.
August 9, 2010, 1:43 pmthirdeblue says:
If just anybody can get First Amendment protections then I don’t want any.
August 9, 2010, 1:43 pmptt says:
It’s got to be confusing being a “conservative” politician these days. One hour, you’re speaking in front of a NOM rally calling for greater protections for religious freedom and arguing for religious morality in civil marriage law while stoking fears that Freedom of Religion is under attack, the next, you’re railing against the rights of Muslims to build a house of worship. Then, that evening, you have to rush from speaking engagements decrying the way Islam seeks to entwine religion with government to a late-night prayer meeting directed at increasing Christianity’s influence in the public square and returning this country to its “Christian origins”.
Must give one quite a headache.
August 9, 2010, 1:44 pmA Law Dawg says:
Isn’t the fact that America permits a mosque to be built in sight of the WTC a huge propaganda victory FOR the US?
August 9, 2010, 1:45 pmAnonny says:
Considering the frequent calls that non-extremist Muslims renounce the 9/11 attacks (and the related argument that the supposed lack or insufficiency of such renouncements proves that most Muslims support the 9/11 attacks), perhaps this is a good time for all Americans who support the Bill of Rights to renounce calls to block this mosque and those who support efforts to block this mosque.
August 9, 2010, 1:46 pmRandy says:
Stacy: ” you’re dealing with a population of people to whom symbolism is far more important than it is to the average non-Muslim American. It is simply not credible to suggest they chose the spot because it’s available, with no reference to what else is nearby.’
Perhaps because numerous people who died in the 9/11 attacks were themselves muslim?
Or maybe you just think that their lives just aren’t worth as much as “real Americans.”
August 9, 2010, 1:48 pmStacy says:
So, only Americans of a certain ethnicity can be jerks and/or religious bigots. Got it. Manhattanism is fun!
August 9, 2010, 1:48 pmConstantin says:
No. Recall bin Laden’s “Weak Horse” soliloquy.
August 9, 2010, 1:49 pmGS says:
You’re absolutely right.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
I’m not arguing the legal right of whoever owns the land to build on it. But really, there should be more sensitivity on the part of the “Cordoba Project” ownership.
That being said, Yankee, you probably know a lot about the law, but you don’t seem to know much about Islam. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Most terrorists are Muslims. And I’m not some backwoods bigot; fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) is what I study. There is no argument to the legal side of this question, but to pretend that Islam is some persecuted flower is ridiculous. Islam is persecution wherever it is dominant by design. The ulama, when speaking to Arabic or Farsi media, refer to it as a feature, not a bug. If there was a substantial grassroots movement against jihad in the Muslim world, it probably would have been reduced to to “abortion clinic-bombing” numbers, don’t you think? I don’t want the government to step in and stop the construction of this victory mosque (part of Islamic culture, look it up) but I sure has hell support this movement.
August 9, 2010, 1:51 pmD.T. says:
RE: mantis
As far as I know, secular people are allowed to handle snakes, wrestle alligators, ski down mountains, race motorcycles, and a great many other things dangerous to themselves alone. None of those secular activities are prohibited as a religious practice. And do not concern the 1st amendment. Neither does what you allow or prohibit in your own home.
D.T.
August 9, 2010, 1:51 pmRandy says:
Brian: “We are presently at war with Islamists, so our national security/war-making powers are implicated. ”
Sure is, Brian! I guess you’ve completely forgotten that the Pentagon also was attacked on that very same day, and many people were killed, and a whole side of the building was demolished. And yet, even today, the military — OUR military — allows muslims to pray INSIDE THE PENTAGON each and every day.
I’m sure you are outraged by this enormous breach of security. Perhaps instead of banning gays from serving openly, we should substitute that with banning openly religious muslims. After all, we can’t have the enemy serving in our battlefields.
August 9, 2010, 1:52 pmmack says:
The owners have a right to build a mosque on their property. And people have a right to voice their displeasure at them doing so.
Professing to be a Christian or sharing your faith in most muslim countries can get you imprisoned or killed.
But denying rights because one doesn’t like the lawful execise of them is contrary to the basic principles that this nation has struggled to uphold and one that I hope will continue to be upheld.
Victory to me – should be the government and private investors getting together to build something bigger and better on the original sight of the twin towers – with a memorial to the individuals who died from the attack. That would send a more practical and symbolic message to Islamic extremists than anything else and be the best memorial to those who died.
August 9, 2010, 1:52 pmAnderson says:
Must give one quite a headache.
Only if they were thinking about what they’re saying. I’m sure their heads feel just fine.
August 9, 2010, 1:54 pmChris Travers says:
Yep, pretty much.
August 9, 2010, 1:55 pmmantis says:
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and gauge our successes by our own metrics, rather than those of scumbag terrorists. I find the Constitution a much better guide than he.
August 9, 2010, 1:55 pmEugene Volokh on the Ground Zero Mosque: “The legal issue is open and shut.” - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine says:
[...] the whole thing here. Click below to watch Volokh talk free speech and guns with [...]
August 9, 2010, 1:55 pmtroll_dc2 says:
I don’t follow your “legal case.” It seems much more like “I wish there were a legal case against the mosque.”
BTW, did anybody see this essay at PrawfsBlawg: The Mosque at Ground Zero: Religious Freedom, saved by the usual lawlessness of land-use regulation?
August 9, 2010, 1:56 pmAnderson says:
“We are presently at war with Islamists, so our national security/war-making powers are implicated.”
Ah yes, the Article 11 exception to the First Amendment.
August 9, 2010, 1:57 pmthirdeblue says:
We have to stay vigilant people. Today, Burlington Coat Factory. Tomorrow, United Colors of Bennetton.
And if that happens who’s to blame? We are for letting it happen. That’s who.
August 9, 2010, 1:59 pmConstantin says:
I was responding to a question about whether having this mosque built will be a propaganda victory for the United States.
You’re answering a totally different question.
August 9, 2010, 1:59 pmRandy says:
Here’s something else — there is actually a Shinto Shrine near Pearl Harbor.
Can you believe that! Those japs attacked us right in the heart of our military strengh, thousands of our boys died in one day, and they had the nerve to build a jap cult shrine anywhere near that site.
Sure, maybe it was legal, but it was SO insensitive! I think that whole war generation that allowed that sort of thing was just a bunch of wusses. Why oh why didn’t we have Sarah back then!
Now that I know that they built that there, so long ago, I should have remained sleepless all these years over the insensitivity of it. I want my outrage back!
August 9, 2010, 2:00 pmAnderson says:
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and gauge our successes by our own metrics, rather than those of scumbag terrorists.
This.
August 9, 2010, 2:01 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
The Carmelite convent had as an explicit purpose praying for those killed at Auschwitz.
Roman Catholicism is hierarchical to a degree that Islam is not.
The Roman Catholic church, and the church in Poland in particular, very clearly bears a great deal of historical responsibility for Auschwitz.
The first and second points are true, obviously. The third I’d protest. If the hierarchical nature of the church is important — distinguishing top-down Catholics from more horizontally-networked Muslims — how can the church in Poland be specially responsible for Auschwitz?
Poland had a large Jewish population under Polish Catholic rule. It was not a happy population nor a well-treated one, but it was there. It took Germans to eradicate it outright.
So there is a huge, IMO, gap between the two situations, that makes them really not comparable. If this particular group of Muslims had a history of encouraging anti-American violence, and then wanted to pray for the 9/11 victims, you would have a case.
Did this particular group of nuns have a history of encouraging people to kill Jews? Did any arm of the Catholic Church in the 20th century? (I don’t mean individual nutcases, but church officials speaking as such?)
And you seem to think it somehow insulting for the perpetrators of a harm to want to atone in prayer for their victims. I don’t think the Carmelites believed themselves implicated in the Holocaust, but if they had, it would have strengthened their case for me, not weakened it.
August 9, 2010, 2:02 pmSteve says:
We are working on it – although the war on bureaucracy and red tape is turning out to be a heck of a lot more challenging than the war against radical Islam. In a few years, there’s going to be a very nice memorial and a very nice office building at Ground Zero – and you’re going to have a very hard time finding the infamous mosque/community center down a side street a couple blocks away even if you look for it.
August 9, 2010, 2:02 pmConstantin says:
Are they always wrong, asks the Port Authority?
August 9, 2010, 2:03 pmthirdeblue says:
Only if you feel that religious freedom is noble and worth fighting for. But for the rest of us REAL AMERICANS™, no.
August 9, 2010, 2:06 pmConstantin says:
It won’t be that hard. Go to the giant hole in the ground, walk two blocks.
Nine years out, nothing built, nothing close to being built. A national disgrace.
August 9, 2010, 2:06 pmyankee says:
And because “a substantial fraction” (what fraction?) of Muslims would be our enemy we should assume all 800 million would like to, including this specific group? That’s bigotry, plain and simple.
And the more Americans go around making declarations that Islam is the enemy, the more Muslims will become our enemies. Nothing could do more to inspire people to become our enemies than to declare that we consider them so.
August 9, 2010, 2:08 pmConstantin says:
Once again, the guy asked about a “propaganda victory for us.” You’re substituting your own enlightened views for those of the people who, in theory, we’d be trying to propagandize. The on-the-fence potential terrorist isn’t going to look at this and figure he shouldn’t hurt those nice, tolerant folks in New York after all.
August 9, 2010, 2:10 pmluagha says:
I’ve been led to believe that originally the Burlington Coat Factory was not zoned for religious use, but that they gained an exception. That would have been the time to stop it with a simple denial.
I’ve also been led to believe that the money to build the cordoba thingy is not fully in place yet, so there are many opportunities for it to fall apart (and in fact, the guy behind it is making the rounds of arabic investors now.)
Donald Trump also gave a wonderful speech before the United Nations explaining how New York building contractors will screw you at every turn and how to deal with them, so we can all hope that this Imam won’t be getting Donald Trump’s help.
August 9, 2010, 2:10 pmmantis says:
No, I’m not.
August 9, 2010, 2:13 pmSarcastro's Little Brother says:
Yeah, and Christians are welcome with open arms in Mecca anyway.
August 9, 2010, 2:14 pmJKB says:
Here’s what you do. Open up a restaurant right next door selling carnitas to raise money to provide healthcare to illegal aliens who worked on the Ground Zero cleanup. Then after all the uproar, permit both the restaurant and mosque thus demonstrating America’s commitment to diversity and tolerance.
August 9, 2010, 2:16 pmRodger Lodger says:
Undoubtedly you are right on the law (Constitution), but so many people argue the syllogism: it is a legal right, therefore it’s good to exercise it. This comes up all the time when somebody says something stupid and their defense is their right of free speech. So if somebody pulls that in support of the mosque people (the sponsors and supporters of the mosque, not the gov’t agencies which have no discretion), try this one on them: the al Qaeda black flag…OK if that flies from the roof of the mosque? Undoubtedly it would be constitutionally protected symbolic speech. So how would you like the defense that they have a First Amendment right to fly it, hmmmm?
August 9, 2010, 2:21 pmLN says:
As a New Yorker who works near the WTC site, and who has lived near there in the past, I really wish the rubes would STFU about how a Muslim religious center in that area is such a grave insult to “our” country.
It’s a ridiculously busy and crowded area, with a tremendous amount of foot traffic, car traffic, ongoing construction, office buildings, food carts, pizza joints, etc etc. The local community board was overwhelmingly in favor of the Cordoba Institute project; virtually all of the opposition is coming from people who consider New York City to be an immoral locale for decadent heathen elites, except when it’s time to use 9/11 as a rallying cry for American pride.
I love how people who are willing to paint 1.5 billion Muslims with a broad brush also cry about how other people aren’t sufficiently “sensitive” to their own feelings.
August 9, 2010, 2:22 pmJustin says:
One criticism of Cathy is her use of the imaginary-hypothetical-proves-hypocrisy tool. Orin’s favorite rhetorical device, IIRC [/sarcasm]
August 9, 2010, 2:23 pmAnton says:
From the Ottawa Citizen.
Hmmm….
August 9, 2010, 2:24 pmthirdeblue says:
I’m trying to convert the “on the fence almost-a-terrorist”. Those people hate Israel and American hegemony regardless, but do they hate it enough to want to martyr themselves all over the pavement for it? Frankly I don’t care. I’m more likely to get killed by a drunk driver on a Friday night or struck by lightning.
I’m more interested in protecting our truly enlightened views of religious liberty from all enemies foreign and most especially those domestic.
Let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyone willing and able to whip themselves and a bunch of fellow nativist bigots into a frenzy over some mosque are nothing short of domestic enemies. Not the Muslims, mind you, the fenzied bigots. Because only they have any sort of hand on the wheel of power.
Furthermore. What possible difference does it make how some kid on the streets of (fill in the blank) view this situation? This is America and we decide things by OUR rules.
And if you at all idealize our rules you will treat any calls to ban the building of this mosque with only one thing: complete and utter contempt.
August 9, 2010, 2:24 pmSarcastro's Little Brother says:
No more symbolic than having the American Ambassador attend the Hiroshima memorial service where the United States is annually condemned for ending World War II the way we ended it.
Oh wait! That really did happen this year.
August 9, 2010, 2:24 pmpc says:
Go two blocks up and you’ll find a Mexican place on the corner. I’ve never tried the carnitas, but the turkey in mole and the chilaquiles are really good. I’m pretty sure the guy who runs it isn’t a Real American(tm) though. He’s brown.
August 9, 2010, 2:24 pmConstantin says:
Yeah, you are. When Guy 1 asks a question about a “propaganda victory for us,” and you respond by writing:
it’s totally non-responsive. You can go ahead and use your own metrics as your gauge and your guide, but the guys we’re aiming the propaganda at–again, pursuant to the originating question–aren’t carrying around a copy of the Federalist Papers, and aren’t reading this blog to see what Mantis thinks about the mosque.
I’m surprised that those who advocate so forcefully for respecting religious diversity would be so dismissive of the idea that “the brown people” might have a different take on realpolitik.
August 9, 2010, 2:26 pmBleh says:
How many American Muslims did you see cheering?
August 9, 2010, 2:26 pmConstantin says:
Because, to recap for about the fifth time, I was responding directly to a question that read, in its entirety:
August 9, 2010, 2:29 pmmantis says:
Who is arguing this? Everyone I see is arguing “it is a legal right, protected by the Constitution, therefore it is right to protect it. Many of us either don’t care or disagree with the choice of the builders, but we believe in our Constitution.
See above. 1st Amendement. Worth protecting. For everyone.
August 9, 2010, 2:29 pmSammy Finkelman says:
You’re up to date ansd informed on this. You know that the mosque is actually 2 blocks from Ground Zero (and on a side street) and you know about the former Con Edison sub station.
You may not know that the mosque is already functioning.
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/manhattan/safety_woe_at_mosque_JQtk5Z1I7OJ8rBR37r4tOI
That might spoil the demagoguery a bit.
That is not to say that theer is not something evil aboput this mosque. First this seems to be an attempt to build the tallest religious building in New York. Second these people really do support terrorists.
Of course all the demagogues don’t want to alert people that there could be any legal problems, and all the defenders want to defend the mosque on principle – the general principle we have of freedom of religion and also the principle of private property – and not cite the constitition or the law (Mayor Bloomberg did both causing a talk radio show host to ask which argument did he want)
August 9, 2010, 2:29 pmMichael B says:
The site in question actually was “ground zero,” at least it was a part, or adjunct part, of it. One of the large wheel housings from one of the aircraft landed precisely on the site in question.
August 9, 2010, 2:30 pmMatt says:
This doesn’t respond specifically to you post, but I think a lot of people are becoming hyperbolic in their defense of the Mosque precisely because they don’t understand the nature of the objections being raised. In all of the more serious conservative publications, the editors have never suggested that we try to legally or forcefully prevent the construction of the Mosque. Rather, we have pointed out that just because one has a right to do something, that doesn’t men it is right to do it. We don’t think it is unreasonable for our Muslim fellow citizens to find a better location. We think it is an example of Western masochism and condescension that we expected the Carmelite nuns to leave their post near Auschwitz, but call anybody who expects Muslims to respect sensitivities surrounding ground zero all kinds of horrible dirty words.
August 9, 2010, 2:30 pmyankee says:
I agree that it’s not a propaganda victory, but scores of politicians and opinion leaders racing to condemn it is definitely a propaganda defeat. The easiest way to make someone your enemy, short of physically attacking them, is to tell them you consider them your enemy.
August 9, 2010, 2:32 pmLN says:
A better example of condescension is thinking that a local community board is incapable of arriving at its own decisions, and needs help from Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich to understand what America is all about.
August 9, 2010, 2:36 pmmantis says:
It doesn’t matter that the “guys we’re aiming the propaganda at” don’t carry the Federalist Papers. If a young Muslim on the path to radicalization is told all the awful things they are told America does to Muslims, but sees that we are a society so committed to our principles of freedom that we allow Muslims to worship within blocks of the WTC site, that may just make him think twice, no? If so, that’s a propaganda victory for US and the Constitution.
Again, pursuant to your comment, implying that we should do things only if bin Laden doesn’t consider them to be a sign of “weakness,” I again state my preference for using the Constitution as my guide for what is right, and the propaganda victories will follow naturally.
August 9, 2010, 2:37 pmThrobert McGee says:
Step 1: Muslims build mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.
August 9, 2010, 2:37 pmStep 2: Some drunk mick whose fireman brother died on 9/11 spray-paints a crude cartoon image of Mohammad fellating a pig on the mosque’s wall.
Step 3: Muslim spokesperson for the mosque that’s two blocks from Ground Zero goes on national TV to complain about the extremely rude graffiti.
Step 4: TV viewers conclude that Islam tends to turn people into insufferable gheywads — surprise!
thirdeblue says:
Protected for all. No questions. Is there any mosque in existence, any branch of Islam liberal enough, that you would not suspect this black-flag waving at some uncertain future point?
If at some future point we can prove that this mosque is materially supporting terrorism. We shut it down.
August 9, 2010, 2:38 pmtroll_dc2 says:
1. If you have a right in theory but it should not be exercised because doing so would not be “good,” then it is not much of a right, is it? The Supreme Court has rejected the heckler’s veto; that is what is being proposed here, it seems.
2. What about the al-Qadea flag? (I frankly did not know that it had a flag, but what do I know about such things?) Is there a First Amendment right to fly it? Sure, unless you can find something in the zoming or criminal laws against it. Would I like do see it flown? No. Is that relevant? No.
3. Symbolism is in the eyes of the asserters. It is a rhetorical device used to persuade others to support or oppose what one wants or opposes, almost always for more earth-bound reasons. I do not trust embracers of symbols, and neither should you.
August 9, 2010, 2:38 pmRSF677 says:
Everything I’ve read suggests that the shrine is several miles away, not right on top of the Pearl Harbor memorial. I don’t think that comparison is particularly apt. I think most of the more sensible objections are not premised on the idea that there shouldn’t be any mosques anywhere within several miles of WTC.
August 9, 2010, 2:40 pmyankee says:
It is absolutely unreasonable. The view that putting a mosque near Ground Zero is in some way objectionable or offensive is sustainable only if you think Islam in general (or these Muslims in particular) should be viewed as morally responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That’s bigotry, plain and simple.
August 9, 2010, 2:41 pmKen Arromdee says:
That assumes he doesn’t buy into some of the other ideas of the radicals as well, in which case our willingness to do this would be seen as weakness and would actually encourage him to become more radical.
August 9, 2010, 2:43 pmSeamus says:
Except that Hitler wasn’t Lutheran. Maybe you should have said it’s like building a convent of Carmelite nuns across from Auschwitz.
August 9, 2010, 2:48 pmpc says:
A month after 9/11 the air was still acrid as far north as Canal St. No mosques south of Canal!
August 9, 2010, 2:49 pmJoseph Slater says:
I agree with Yankee re Constantin’s point. I don’t know — and I doubt any of us posting here really knows — exactly what would convince an “on the fence” terrorist to actually become one or reject becoming one. But I don’t see why (1) “hey look, they are so weak they allow us to build a mosque here, I’m going terrorist” is any more likely than, (2) “hey look, they won’t let us build a mosque because they hate/distrust us, I’m going terrorist” for those folks on the fence.
And one really can push the “weak horse” stuff too far. Yes, we should appear to be — and actually be — a formidable opponent to our true foes in the world. But no, we shouldn’t become a more authoritarian society in hopes that we will appear more formidable.
August 9, 2010, 2:51 pmKen Arromdee says:
Bowling for Columbine contains a complaint by Michael Moore that the NRA held a meeting right after Columbine. While the complaint is nonsense, it’s mostly so because it’s just not true (the NRA did in fact cancel all meetings that they legally could). The idea that they should cancel the meeting isn’t itself disputed all that much.
So the NRA is told that promoting gun use is insensitive because someone else abused guns to kill people. Here, promoting Islam is insensitive because someone else abused Islam to kill people.
Of course, the NRA meetings were close in time, but not close in space, to Columbine. The mosque and cultural center are close in space, but not in time, to 9/11. But it still seems like the same basic situation (even though we could argue about how much time or space is needed).
Does everyone who thinks the mosque should be build also think that the NRA should have held meetings soon after Columbine? If not, why not?
August 9, 2010, 2:51 pmthirdeblue says:
Even if this were true, this would matter to us exactly how? I normally don’t expect proto-jihadists to share my affinity for liberal democracy. Hell. I don’t normally expect my follow citizens to share it either.
August 9, 2010, 2:53 pmpc says:
Apparently 900 miles is too close!
August 9, 2010, 2:55 pmKen Arromdee says:
So do you think that the demand that the NRA not hold meetings after Columbine was based on the belief that the NRA was morally responsible for Columbine?
Or the demand that nuns not build a convent near Auschwitz is based on the belief that Catholicism was morally responsible for the Nazis?
August 9, 2010, 2:55 pmRandy says:
“So how would you like the defense that they have a First Amendment right to fly it, hmmmm?”
I agree. First Amendment rights should only protect the speech that I agree with. It shouldn’t protect speech I don’t like. What’s so hard to understand about that?
The first amendment wasn’t enacted to like, you know, actually protect unpopular speech.
August 9, 2010, 3:01 pmtroll_dc2 says:
I wish that the NRA had not postponed any of its meetings. Going through with them would have harmed it politically.
If an entity wishes to take public opinion into account in making its decisions, it has the freedom to do so. But unless there is a legal reason requiring it to worry about public opinion, it has the freedom not to do so.
August 9, 2010, 3:02 pmSarcastro's Little Brother says:
Yeah! We all know Hitler was a devout Catholic who attended Mass on a daily basis.
I hear some guy named Godwin was his personal confessor.
August 9, 2010, 3:02 pmyankee says:
I don’t know what the subjective motivations of people who objected to the NRA meetings were, but the objection would only be intellectually sustainable if you thought the problem with Columbine was the availability of guns. I’m not familiar with the thing about Auschwitz—what were the objections?
August 9, 2010, 3:05 pmRandy says:
Matt (And Rodge Lodger and Gasman): “Rather, we have pointed out that just because one has a right to do something, that doesn’t men it is right to do it. We don’t think it is unreasonable for our Muslim fellow citizens to find a better location.”
So the military should ask it’s servicemen who are muslim to pray a few miles from work, well outside the Pentagon? It’s legal but not the right thing to do?
And again, if muslims are all our enemy, then how can you justify having any avowed muslims serve in our military in any capacity?
August 9, 2010, 3:07 pmrb1971 says:
At least as far north as Houston (where I lived at the time). That’s like a third of Manhattan right there!
August 9, 2010, 3:09 pmConstantin says:
Here is the opening paragraph of Christopher Hitchens’s column on this, published an hour ago. I think he’s hit on something very important in the parenthetical:
Though I don’t believe the government should do anything to stop the mosque’s construction (I also look forward to holding the government’s strange new respect for property rights against it), I will confess to unease about the whole thing in part because of the propaganda matter I’ve gone on about above, but also due to the resentment Hitchens identifies. That we’re still looking at a giant hole in NYC goes beyond shame.
August 9, 2010, 3:13 pmSarcastro says:
I know how Muslims think, and they are totally declaring victory here. Every single one, since they all think alike. Really, it’s less a religion and more of a hive-mind.
That cheering in the streets after 9-11? That wasn’t a small minority of radicals, it was signaling through careful butt-wiggles the location of sweet sweet nectar.
August 9, 2010, 3:15 pms. danori says:
The legal issue is “open and shut”? I wish it was as clear as EV suggests, but rarely is any legal issue open and shut — there is almost always going to be room for interpretation and debate when it comes to applying written rules (in this case, the free exercise clause) to real-world cases. For example, SCOTUS, in Reynolds v. US (1879), prohibited polygamy in the Utah territory because to allow it would potentially subvert “good order.” Here, a religious practice (not religious thought, but behavior) was prohibited in the interests of public order. Religious behavior is not always immune from regulation.
August 9, 2010, 3:21 pmDilan Esper says:
As a New Yorker who works near the WTC site, and who has lived near there in the past, I really wish the rubes would STFU about how a Muslim religious center in that area is such a grave insult to “our” country.
This is worth repeating. One of the underappreciated aspects of this is it is really none of the rest of us’ fricking business what decisions New York makes about the ground zero area. It’s especially offensive when a bunch of politicians who repeatedly put down New York, easterners, and “coastal elites” suddenly are all concerned with the sacredness of a portion of New York City.
August 9, 2010, 3:23 pmjack osborne says:
legal schmegal. Legality means nothing when a mass of people determine that something is wrong! Or right!
If the people want it to happen it will happens and woe to those who stand in the way!
Seems to me I remember when things were considered to a public nuisance or against the public good, and were punished even though legal in fact!
The will of the people should be paramount, perhaps!
Oh, I digress, and find that the mere discussion of this situation is irritating. why, I know not, but believe that the building is disruptive to our society, even though legal in concept!Exactly the same as a nudist colony next to a grammar school!
August 9, 2010, 3:26 pmLester Livio says:
The most interesting angle of this whole mosque controversy is being ignored. Who really is funding this Mosque? Would it still be protected by the First Amendment if it is funded by the Iranians or the Saudis or the Syrians? Does the government have the right to examine the finances of the organization building the mosque?
While building the mosque is a symbolic victory for global Islam, it is essentially a hollow victory, empty symbolism. That mosque would not bring back the Islamic caliphate, make America an Islamic nation, or lead to the creation of an Islamic Internet or Islamic space and aeronautic technologies, as is the wish of millions of Muslims.
August 9, 2010, 3:28 pmRWRH says:
So is Judaism and at one time, so was Christianity.
Somehow Christians in the US managed to separate the systems just fine (or at least most of them did).
August 9, 2010, 3:28 pmpc says:
George Soros. He has extra money to spend now that ACORN isn’t around.
August 9, 2010, 3:32 pmlosantiville says:
It hasn’t been my experience that siting churches is easy. Congress passed RLUIPA to try and make it easier but there are still plenty of problems. Church siting isn’t automatic anywhere and NYC has strong regs. If the government wanted to hold things up, I’m sure it could but it doesn’t.
Note that the WTC is a battlefield. I recall that federal, state, and local governments near Manassas, Gettysburg, Valley Forge and Antietam have all restricted conflicting developments in the vicinity.
It would be constitutional to protect sacred spaces from conflicting message capture as long as the content of the message is not at issue.
August 9, 2010, 3:33 pmByomtov says:
MDT,
If the hierarchical nature of the church is important — distinguishing top-down Catholics from more horizontally-networked Muslims — how can the church in Poland be specially responsible for Auschwitz?
Because the church in Poland was particularly anti-Semitic.
Poland had a large Jewish population under Polish Catholic rule. It was not a happy population nor a well-treated one, but it was there. It took Germans to eradicate it outright.
It is well-documented that the Germans enjoyed considerable local support in their activities. (Not just in Poland, of course).
Did this particular group of nuns have a history of encouraging people to kill Jews? Did any arm of the Catholic Church in the 20th century? (I don’t mean individual nutcases, but church officials speaking as such?)
I’m not sure why you restrict yourself to the 20th Century. Surely the history of the previous centuries is relevant as well. Nazism did not spring from unprepared soil.
But to answer your question:
“There will be a Jewish problem as long as the Jews remain…It is a fact that the Jews fight against the Catholic church, they are free-thinkers, and constitute the vanguard of atheism, bolshevism and revolution. It is true that the Jews are committing frauds, practicing usury, and dealing in white slavery. It is also true that in the schools the Jewish youth is having an evil influence, from an ethical and religious point of view, on the Catholic youth.”
Tht may not “encourage people to kill Jews,” technically speaking, but it’s hardly the writing of a tolerant man. Hlond later covered his ass by criticizing violence against Jews, but surely the above outweighs that. And this was not an individual nutcase. His views were common, among churchmen as well as laypeople, as anyone familiar with the history of Poland in the first half of the 20th century knows. Bear in mind that anti-Semitism was a significant issue in Poland, that at least one of the leading political parties made overt anti-Semitism a part of its platform. Given the close involvement of church and state, to pretend the church was innocent is silly.
As for the broader church, well, the debate over Pius XII is old ground, on which I suspect we disagree. Perhaps if the Vatican’s archive were ever opened we would learn more.
And you seem to think it somehow insulting for the perpetrators of a harm to want to atone in prayer for their victims. I don’t think the Carmelites believed themselves implicated in the Holocaust, but if they had, it would have strengthened their case for me, not weakened it.
I am not aware that the construction of the convent had anything at all to do with atonement for the Holocaust, or that the Carmelites considered themselves in any way implicated. Hypothetically, though, I think it would be a strangely self-centered method of atonement that would be rejected by many of the victims and their survivors.
August 9, 2010, 3:33 pmL says:
Michael Moore is not honest, and I’m guessing he was not honest about what NRA meetings are like. If he is honest, and NRA meetings are all about how guns are totally rad and nothing bad has ever happened due to anyone’s use of a gun and everyone should have guns and use them all the time with no consequences, then yeah, it was a little insensitive to hold their meeting at that time and place. But like I say, I don’t think Michael Moore is honest.
Similarly, if the Cordoba mosque is going to be all about how all Muslims everywhere are so rad and no Muslims have ever done anything wrong and if they did then it wasn’t really wrong but totally righteous, then yeah, it’s pretty insensitive I guess to put their mosque at this place.
But Islam is an extremely large and diverse group, and this subset of Muslims is clearly not there to celebrate 9/11.
What I’m more interested in is the intersection between the group of people who advocated publishing cartoon depictions of Muhammad despite, or specifically because of the fact that it would offend Muslims, and the group of people who now insist that just because you have the legal right to do something doesn’t mean you should, if it might offend somebody.
Someone brought up the al Qaeda “black flag.” Is there such a thing? I don’t know why it would be such an issue – all over this country (and more in the “real” parts of it than the “non-real” parts of it) flies a flag that symbolizes an organization that killed more Americans than al Qaeda has or ever will. And a lot of people get upset about it, but it’s pretty rare that anyone argues that a private person doesn’t have the right to fly it.
August 9, 2010, 3:33 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Sarcastro,
That cheering in the streets after 9–11? That wasn’t a small minority of radicals, it was signaling through careful butt-wiggles the location of sweet sweet nectar.
If a “small minority of radicals” in your own neighborhood took, say, the massacre of a few thousand blacks by a white supremacist as an occasion for a block party, I would hope that you and most of your neighbors would react on a large scale. No violence necessary; just your ordinary, instinctive “these people are seriously sick puppies, and I want absolutely no part of what they’re cheering about.”
August 9, 2010, 3:35 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
I’ve argued before that if the “thereof” in the Free Exercise Clause refers to religious exercise (i.e., practices), then in fact the Congress can’t forbid human sacrifice in the District of Columbia, or any of the other objectionable practices you’ve listed. And since the Congress has sole authority over DC, those practices can’t be forbidden there at all. Nor can other legislatures forbid them in other places, since the First Amendment is now held to also bind them.
Of course, my point is that “the free exercise thereof” refers to the operation of state establishments of religion (e.g., the Congregational Church in Massachusetts, until 1833), not to religious practices per se, so I don’t see any conflict between banning some practices and the Free Exercise Clause. But I don’t believe the standard reading of that clause allows for it – unless we invoke the Zeroth Amendment, which in its entirety reads “When convenient, the following apply:”
Admittedly, this is not an argument I expect to win.
August 9, 2010, 3:37 pmSarcastro says:
Also that they represent every Muslim I see, since they all think alike.
August 9, 2010, 3:38 pmGuy says:
Why is it the so-called party of independence and personal responsibility is so quick to resort to group blame and assumptions that any particular group is completely monolithic? (Not that I know Michelle’s party affiliation, but it’s a common trait among the more knee-jerk wing-nut breeds of Republicans).
August 9, 2010, 3:43 pmXanthippas says:
I’m sorry, did I miss the part where American Muslims were cheering 9/11 in the streets? Because, you know, that’s who’ll be worshiping here.
August 9, 2010, 3:46 pmConstantin says:
Probably because everyone does it.
You just did.
August 9, 2010, 3:50 pmCrazyTrain says:
Well, I will certainly defend their right to say what they want, but I won’t defend it to my death; I just don’t feel that strongly. Call me a coward.
August 9, 2010, 3:50 pmDimitri says:
Prof Volokh, I’m not a lawyer so this may sound a bit naive, but can there be content-based restrictions during war time? So, for argument’s sake, let’s say (1) we are at war, (2) our enemy’s avowed objective is to impose Sharia on the United States, (3) it can somehow be demonstrated that building the Ground Zero Mosque strengthens the enemy’s arguments that we are weak and are beginning to capitulate, and that building the Mosque at this location strengthens enemy recruitment / fighting spirit (remember, this is a hypothetical, so please accept my assumptions). In such a scenario, can the Government impose content-based restrictions on those wishing to build this mosque, even if they are claiming that they are exercising their rights to peacefully worship at a location of their choosing?
Thanks
August 9, 2010, 3:54 pmRandy says:
Byomtov: “Because the church in Poland was particularly anti-Semitic. ”
Sadly, I have a friend who has obtained actual photographs of the opening ceremonies of several different concentration camps, some of which were in Poland. These photos show quite clearly Catholic cardinals giving the hitler salute as german soldiers marched by, and others showing catholic priests marching right behind german officers in parades.
All these were part of the ‘festivities’ of opening a new camp. I can only imagine what sort of ‘blessing’ these men gave.
Whether the Carmelite convent should open near a camp, I don’t know — I don’t know THEIR history with the site, and it’s a different country, etc. But the church has a lot to answer for in this shameful time period.
August 9, 2010, 3:56 pmyankee says:
It’s particularly ironic since one of the more prominent mosque opponents is of the opinion that New York is an anti-American part of fake America.
August 9, 2010, 3:57 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Sarcastro,
Also that they represent every
Muslimwhite person I see, since they all think alike.You might do me the courtesy of reading the whole comment. It wasn’t unbearably long.
August 9, 2010, 4:02 pmBob from Ohio says:
NYC has received tens of billions of US tax dollars to repair damage and compensate various groups harmed by 9/11.
Should that money be sent back? If its none of our business what happens in NYC, then NYC should fund itself.
9/11 was an assault on the United States of America, not merely on NYC.
Stick to your good arguments.
August 9, 2010, 4:04 pmGuy says:
Yeah, I know, but I was too lazy to edit it to something smarter sounding. But I added qualifiers to make it clear I wasn’t talking about all Republicans! Yeah, pretty half-assed.
August 9, 2010, 4:04 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Guy,
Why is it the so-called party of independence and personal responsibility is so quick to resort to group blame and assumptions that any particular group is completely monolithic? (Not that I know Michelle’s party affiliation, but it’s a common trait among the more knee-jerk wing-nut breeds of Republicans).
As I said to Sarcastro, you might read the actual comment. (Registered Dem here, not that it matters.)
August 9, 2010, 4:04 pmDilan Esper says:
NYC has received tens of billions of US tax dollars to repair damage and compensate various groups harmed by 9/11. Should that money be sent back? If its none of our business what happens in NYC, then NYC should fund itself.
This is not a serious argument. It’s just reactionary spew.
EVERY locality in this country receives federal funding. Unless you think the federal government should control or have veto power over every local zoning decision, that doesn’t prove anything.
Indeed, I suspect that 99.999999 percent of the time, you would be telling us how great local control and federalism is. But when it comes to actually dictating the land use of a small parcel of New York City, your views trump the decisions made by duly elected and appointed local bodies because some of your tax money made it across the Holland Tunnel?
August 9, 2010, 4:07 pmmojo says:
On the other hand – not being a government, I’m not required to be tolerant of egregious provocation by any religion or it’s adherents. I’m free to spit on the stupid mosque, to call it an eyesore that should fall down soon (god willing) and to sell pulled pork sandwiches and beer on the public street outside the main doors every friday.
Oh, wait – I’m not, it seems. Why that might be a “provocation” of the poor, put-upon muslims, who might be so provoked as to physically attack me. Dearie dear, how awful!
August 9, 2010, 4:10 pmL says:
Let’s look at this another way. For argument’s sake let’s say (1) we are at war, (2) our enemy’s avowed objective is to impose Sharia on the United States, (3) it can somehow be demonstrated that protesting the Ground Zero Mosque strengthens the enemy’s argument that we are intolerant crusaders oppressing Islam, and that protesting the mosque at this location strengthens enemy recruitment / fighting spirit (remember, this is a hypothetical, so please accept my assumptions). In such a scenario, can the government impose content-based restrictions on those wishing to protest this mosque, even if they are claiming that they are exercising their free-speech rights to peacefully express their opinion?
You are not a lawyer, but your gut is telling you “no.” Trust that.
August 9, 2010, 4:10 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Xanthippas,
I’m sorry, did I miss the part where American Muslims were cheering 9/11 in the streets? Because, you know, that’s who’ll be worshiping here.
I am not the one who originally referred to Muslims cheering in the streets. I was responding to Sarcastro’s “small minority” line. Again: if a “small minority” of your own neighbors thought a massacre of [insert any nationality/religion/race/gender here] was an occasion for a block party, wouldn’t you protest? Wouldn’t most people? Outside the small, radical minority, I mean?
Were someone to show that the cheering crowds on 9/11 were overwhelmed by the immediate, much larger protests by sane people, I would be much reassured.
August 9, 2010, 4:15 pmDilan Esper says:
On the other hand — not being a government, I’m not required to be tolerant of egregious provocation by any religion or it’s adherents. I’m free to spit on the stupid mosque, to call it an eyesore that should fall down soon (god willing) and to sell pulled pork sandwiches and beer on the public street outside the main doors every friday.
Actually, I don’t know about selling pork or spitting, but as far as protesting, you will have a full First Amendment right to do so and I suspect there will indeed be protesters if and when this thing gets built.
August 9, 2010, 4:22 pmLN says:
Please, let’s not act like New York is some sort of tax drain on the rest of the country. If you want to think that the conversion of a Burlington Coat Factory to a religious center is some sort of slap in the face, then this just tells me that you like being slapped in the face. And so I can add some more slaps if you please: the Muslims who will pray in a building two blocks from the WTC site are much greater part of New York City than you will ever be. Oh, and people protesting the mosque are basically stupid ignorant hicks riled up by dumbass demagogues. Doesn’t that feel good?
August 9, 2010, 4:24 pmL says:
And more to the point, the reason you are not free to spit and might not be free to sell pork and beer has nothing to do with provocation, and everything to do with trespass, zoning and land use laws, liquor control laws, food service licenses, etc., etc.
August 9, 2010, 4:26 pmEH says:
Who’s trying to “build” a “mosque?” Regardless, you’re asking a question regarding time travel, which is silly. The right question is, “Did it end up mattering?” and the answer is “no.”
Also, the NRA isn’t a part of the government.
August 9, 2010, 4:33 pmJon Rowe says:
No serious scholar of the First Amendment — even the most hardcore originalists — believes Free Exercise was referring to state establishments of religion. What many of them do believe is that the FEC means you have the right to freely exercise your religion within the confines of the secular civil law. That is no necessary “right” to accommodations from secular laws that have the incidental affect of burdening your religious practice. Government has the privilege of giving accommodations on a case by case basis.
August 9, 2010, 4:34 pmCarol says:
What if a case were built showing that Islam, in particular, seeks to usurp and replace the US government and constitution, once it gets its tentacles into the right machinery?
August 9, 2010, 4:44 pmpc says:
:cough: Ohio can cut us a check anytime it is ready.
August 9, 2010, 4:44 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Maybe someone will fly a plane into it.
August 9, 2010, 4:47 pmFloridan says:
You can always tell when it’s summer and junior high students have idle time.
August 9, 2010, 4:47 pmpc says:
Dominionism seeks the same thing. Is it time to ban Christian Evangelical churches?
August 9, 2010, 4:48 pmConstantin says:
This is all true. But it’s aggressively obtuse to claim that the rest of us shouldn’t care what happens at (or around) Ground Zero. I guess the other 292 million of us should have just shrugged it off on 9/11 because we didn’t vote for the people who governed the buildings?
(However absurd the “What’s it to you?” argument is, it’s even worse when it comes from the White House spokesman. So now we have Bloomberg posing as Richard Epstein on property rights, and Barack as the modern champion of federalism.)
August 9, 2010, 4:49 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Piss off. Young men from my hometown have been coming home in body bags because of what happened at ground zero.
It’s all of our business.
August 9, 2010, 4:57 pmGuy says:
But you were responding to Sarcastro criticizing protests against this mosque, so unless you’re saying that the people associated with the mosque were among the block partiers, I don’t see the parallel of your hypothetical.
August 9, 2010, 4:58 pmBrianTH says:
I’m less concerned about the Muslim on the verge of becoming a terrorist than about the Muslim trying to decide whether or not to risk his or her life or property to help us out (with intelligence, physical action, or so on).
August 9, 2010, 4:59 pmL says:
Oh, but Carol’s hypothetical was that Islam, in particular (meaning, I guess, Islam as a whole), is seeking this. Which is absurd of course, since Islam as a whole can’t do anything, because Islam as a whole isn’t unified in any meaningful sense.
But if we’re not going to fight the hypo – the answer is not to restrict the free exercise rights of Muslims. The answer is we make sure the Establishment Clause does its job to keep those tentacles out of the machinery.
August 9, 2010, 4:59 pmSarcastro says:
Indeed! This is why I say we condemn all Muslims as secret terrorists because they don’t view the terrorists as brothers and therefore protest them.
Their silence is all the proof I need that they are all waiting to Jihad out from every Mosque!
August 9, 2010, 5:04 pmSteverino says:
The stated purpose of building the mosque is to promote understanding between the United States and the Muslim world. To promote, according to a fawning Time Magazine piece, greater “interfaith dialogue.”
This is obviously not true. If the principals behind this building were at all interested in dialogue they’d be listening instead of merely preaching. Instead, we are witnessing an organization demonstrating it doesn’t care about public opinion, and nobody can make it.
Hardly the course of action self-declared “bridge-builders” would pursue.
This is something those hard-over for the construction of this Islamic center gloss over. This isn’t merely an opportunity for the US to demonstrate sensitivity toward the Muslim world. The opposite is also true.
Instead, as LN puts it, they are using this as an opportunity to tell the “rubes” to “STFU.”
Got it. Message of contempt received and understood.
August 9, 2010, 5:06 pmyankee says:
The Communist Party of the Cold War era sought the same thing, but they were permitted to operate.
August 9, 2010, 5:07 pmLN says:
What I find interesting is that the people who take grave offense at this mosque don’t seem the slightest bit curious about why locals don’t have a problem with it.
August 9, 2010, 5:08 pmChrisTS says:
losantville:
Apart from whether the WTC is aptly described as a ‘battlefield,’ the problems at Gettsburg, et alia, had to do with creating shopping centers and amusements parks near [real] battle sites. These were considered contrary to the message of the sites because they were unserious and noisy.
So, your reasoning would only work to forbid shopping and amusement parks near the WTC. As far as I know, the mosque and center proposed near the WTC do not present any threat of less-seriousness or greater noisiness than the rest of downtown already affords.
August 9, 2010, 5:09 pmDilan Esper says:
This is all true. But it’s aggressively obtuse to claim that the rest of us shouldn’t care what happens at (or around) Ground Zero. I guess the other 292 million of us should have just shrugged it off on 9/11 because we didn’t vote for the people who governed the buildings?
Should you care that 3,000 people were murdered? Yeah, you should. Does that mean you get a say in how New Yorkers make land use decisions around Ground Zero? No, it doesn’t.
August 9, 2010, 5:10 pmpc says:
We aren’t Real Americans(tm).
August 9, 2010, 5:11 pmDilan Esper says:
Piss off. Young men from my hometown have been coming home in body bags because of what happened at ground zero. It’s all of our business.
WHAT’S all of our business? The War in Afghanistan? Sure. Homeland security measures? Sure.
The local land use decisions of New York City? That doesn’t follow. Indeed, it’s offensive that people who don’t live there are asserting the right to override the decisions of those who do.
August 9, 2010, 5:12 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Guy,
But you were responding to Sarcastro criticizing protests against this mosque, so unless you’re saying that the people associated with the mosque were among the block partiers, I don’t see the parallel of your hypothetical.
OK, I’ll try again.
Sarcastro implied that the people who cheered 9/11 were a small, radical minority. I retorted that ordinarily when a “small, radical minority” takes atrocities as an occasion to celebrate, the large, non-radical majority around them protests immediately and fiercely. Sarcastro wasn’t talking about American Muslims, and neither was I. My point was that there was no great counterreaction in the Muslim world to the glee some people exhibited at 9/11, as there surely would have been if a bunch of white supremacists threw a party on hearing of a massacre of blacks.
August 9, 2010, 5:16 pmLN says:
No, *I* am telling the rubes to STFU. In characteristic rube fashion, your wittle feewings are hurt and now you want to find Mommy and cry. Nobody likes you!
As far as hearing you goes, I think I hear you just fine: Muslims aren’t real Americans. Neither are the non-Muslims who live in the area. These people hate America and want to destroy it.
Like I said before, the rubes should really STFU.
And Crunchy Frog, how many young men are coming home in body bags because of what goes on in a Burlington Coat Factory?
Maybe our politics should focus more on what actually matters, and less on symbolic crap that enables bored busybodies to interfere with people’s everyday lives.
August 9, 2010, 5:16 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Sarcastro,
Indeed! This is why I say we condemn all Muslims as secret terrorists because they don’t view the terrorists as brothers and therefore protest them.
Their silence is all the proof I need that they are all waiting to Jihad out from every Mosque!
Oh, golly.
Sarcastro, the people I am wondering about are the immediate neighbors of the people who partied on 9/11 — you know, that tiny, radical minority that wanted to celebrate a few thousand infidels being burned alive or spattered on the pavement. Those people. If they are such a tiny number, oughtn’t they to have been overwhelmed in number by their sane neighbors?
August 9, 2010, 5:25 pmNate says:
Except the cheers in question were in Palestinian territories, where the average citizen hates America for reasons that have much more to do with foreign policy than religion. Imagine a huge, destructive attack on North Korea or Iran. If you don’t think there’d be talking heads on the tv and radio crowing about it, you clearly haven’t listened to Rush or Hannity lately. While I don’t believe the Palestinians are correct to feel this way, I think it’s fair to suggest that to a lot of them, we are a force for evil in much the way we as Americans view North Korea or Iran.
August 9, 2010, 5:27 pmGuy says:
What form would you expect to see the reaction take? You’re not arguing that Muslims haven’t condemned the attacks and celebrations, I don’t think, sou is it just that you haven’t seen enough condemnation?
August 9, 2010, 5:28 pmSquirtus Maximus says:
I love hearing the prep-school progs insist that this should be a local decision. Apparently the fetish for federalizing everything under the sun does have a single, albeit selectively applied, limitation.
It must be a terrible thing to be to dense to appreciate good irony. Not as funny as the Oppenheimer t-shirt I wore when touring Hiroshima, but still pretty good.
More importantly- build the mosque. Let New Yorkers show how tolerant they are. And then, when that doesn’t work out so well, the non-morons can go back and pick up the pieces.
August 9, 2010, 5:29 pmDilan Esper says:
By the way, seriously, if there is a problem vis-a-vis New York vs. the rest of the country, it’s the exact opposite of the one that conservatives are claiming here.
If we pursue policies that increase the offense that Muslims take at us, and thereby radicalize more Muslims, it isn’t the “heartland” whose cities are going to be attacked. It’s New York, LA, Washington, D.C., and other coastal cities.
So, you have a bunch of mostly conservative Christians from the midsection and South of the country, who believe in things that are just as unsupported and anti-intellectual as the beliefs of Muslims, trying to force a religious war that will result in a lot of secular folks on the coasts getting killed.
As long as we are the UNITED States of America, it would be really helpful if people who don’t live in the cities in Al Qaeda’s sights stop antagonizing Muslims just because they believe that the Invisible Man in the Sky has a different messenger and teachings than you think he does.
August 9, 2010, 5:30 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
LN,
As far as hearing you goes, I think I hear you just fine: Muslims aren’t real Americans.
OT, but I really do think that the Council on American-Islamic Relations ought to change its name. Anyone looking to suggest that Americans and Muslims are two non-overlapping categories could hardly come up with a better propaganda tool after a month of brainstorming.
August 9, 2010, 5:30 pmDilan Esper says:
I love hearing the prep-school progs insist that this should be a local decision. Apparently the fetish for federalizing everything under the sun does have a single, albeit selectively applied, limitation.
Um, I was making the local control argument and I think a lot of things should be under local control. And certainly zoning decisions is one of those things.
But bear in mind, just because a liberal might think that, say, the South shouldn’t get to locally control the issue of discrimination against blacks in 1964 doesn’t mean the person’s a hypocrite– the two issues are different issues.
August 9, 2010, 5:32 pmsmead jolley says:
Less rigorous factfinding and inferencing than that employed in Brown, or recently by Judge Walker, would force the conclusion that in the case of Islam “religion” is actually a eupehmism for political takeover and domination.
August 9, 2010, 5:34 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
these particular Islamists
The Cordoba Project aren’t “Islamists.” They’re sufis. Most honest-to-goodness Islamists don’t like sufis one bit. Perhaps you might deign to do some research before giving us dodo-brained comments.
August 9, 2010, 5:34 pmGuy says:
Is there anyone in the country who thinks municipal land use and zoning decisions should be federal? I haven’t heard that argument made. I think pretty much everyone, with very few exceptions, is happy with federalism, it’s just that people draw the lines in different spots.
August 9, 2010, 5:35 pmSarcastro says:
[I have 2 problems with your premise. First that those folks have people that consider them neighbors. It's not like here where freedom of speech and rule of law are the norm. Protesting is not a universal human reaction, it seems more of a modern thing. And in the more totalitarian Middle East, Iran has shown us it the stakes can be much higher.
Second is the idea that if you do not protest people who are happy about terrorism you must be kind of a pseudo-enemy. Not protesting an inappropriate celebration does not imply approval, and celebration of terrorism does not imply the person is a terrorist.]
August 9, 2010, 5:42 pmCrunchy Frog says:
That depends. Do they make explosive vests there?
I’ll bet they don’t regularly preach to the faithful that America is the Great Satan and that they should all do their part to eliminate the infidels and establish the Caliphate on our shores.
August 9, 2010, 5:42 pmsaintsimon says:
The problem is that in a country as obsessed with ‘religion’ as America it’s impossible to effectively and convincingly criticize religion – the opponents of Cordoba House don’t trust Islam [and for legitimate reasons] but to convincingly oppose on those grounds they would have to call into question all religious belief and that of course is an impossibility – they would have to argue that all religious fervor is dangerous but how we practice such here in the West is less so because we purged or at least tamed the worst of our faith based demons centuries ago whereas the Muslims have yet to take that evolutionary step and therefore the threat implied by their particular brand of zealotry is different – in other words, if Islam has yet to figure out the whole modernity thing and pass through the inevitable turmoil of such a turn it is decidedly not unreasonable or ‘intolerant’ to question the sanity of indulging their wholly unpredictable attempts to do so here – but of course no god fearing American is gonna make such an argument and therefore they are doomed to struggle with the having of their constitutional cake whilst eating of it too.
But let’s not forget, the constitution is merely a necessary mechanism [as judged by our values] for portioning out justice and arbitrating differences – that necessity does not confer upon it an absolute truth and therefore to conjecture that to abrogate certain religious freedoms would doom America is in a sense no more certain a statement than to conjecture that to allow too much latitude to particular belief systems threatens national security.
August 9, 2010, 5:42 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
Here’s something else — there is actually a Shinto Shrine near Pearl Harbor.
Worse yet, there’s a Pancho Villa Cafe in Columbus, New Mexico — where Pancho Villa, the bin Laden of his day, killed a bunch of people in a raid in the early 20th century.
August 9, 2010, 5:45 pm1040 says:
so, you are sympathetic to the saudi way of thought? that makes you a real danger to america.
August 9, 2010, 5:49 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Nate,
Except the cheers in question were in Palestinian territories, where the average citizen hates America for reasons that have much more to do with foreign policy than religion. Imagine a huge, destructive attack on North Korea or Iran. If you don’t think there’d be talking heads on the tv and radio crowing about it, you clearly haven’t listened to Rush or Hannity lately. While I don’t believe the Palestinians are correct to feel this way, I think it’s fair to suggest that to a lot of them, we are a force for evil in much the way we as Americans view North Korea or Iran.
I can’t agree. The instinctive reaction of nearly all Americans to a massive strike at a civilian target anywhere would be shock and horror. (This is quite apart from the fact that Iran and North Korea could each do horrific damage to nearby nations if they felt threatened.)
But suppose for a moment that some talk-show personality said the equivalent of “let’s party!” Do you suppose any community in this country would fall wholeheartedly in line?
August 9, 2010, 5:51 pmCrunchy Frog says:
I’m not asserting any right to overrule the zoning commission (whatever it’s called). I am asserting the right to call the decision stupid and short-sighted, and I am predicting that they will come to regret the decision at a later date.
Could the federal government step in and block it? Possibly. I am not advocating for Congressional action in any case.
August 9, 2010, 5:51 pmDilan Esper says:
The problem is that in a country as obsessed with ‘religion’ as America it’s impossible to effectively and convincingly criticize religion
This is very much true. Indeed, I have no truck for Islam (including the non-terrorist kind) and also have no truck for Christianity (including its non-violent forms). But whenever I criticize Christianity for being (a) implausible, (b) anti-feminist, or (c) homophobic, or on any other ground, I get called a bigot.
But the solution to this is to lift the taboo on criticizing religion. Again, I have no problem if the people who don’t like this building go out there and protest it every day, just like you will often find members of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests outside of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. That’s what the First Amendment and a free society is all about.
I also don’t have any problem per se with criticisms of Islam. My problems with most American conservative Christian critics of Islam are (a) they don’t know what they are talking about, and tar a billion Muslims with the beliefs of a small number of fanatics, the equivalent of assuming all Christians agree with David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, (b) they don’t admit that Islam is a religion entitled equal dignity to their own religion (and which purports to worship the same Abrahamic God), and (c) they throw criticisms at Islam while desiring that nobody ever criticize their own hocus-pocus.
But I actually think we’d all be much better off if we explicitly moved towards a model where ALL religion is subject to ridicule, but where people who ridicule religions are expected to know something about them and to not ridicule them on bases that are equally applicable to their own beliefs. Conservative Christians, however, don’t seem to want to compete on a level playing field.
August 9, 2010, 5:52 pmSteverino says:
Thank you for demonstrating I’m right. The people supporting this construction, whether muslim or non-muslim, are only interested in insulting people and have no interest whatsoever in dialogue with those who don’t see things their way.
I couldn’t have asked for a better response.
August 9, 2010, 6:00 pmOrenWithAnE says:
So? People disapprove of your religion bashing … sounds perfectly acceptable in a ‘free market of ideas’ for them to bash your religion-bashing.
There is nothing shocking that people that believe X disapprove of people that believe ~X and call it disparaging names. Atheists that call religious beliefs ‘implausible’ (or worse), theists that call atheism ‘bankrupt’ or ‘immoral’ (or worse). What would truly be shocking is the absence of such disdain.
I see no shortage of outrage, ridicule and contempt for conservative christianity.
August 9, 2010, 6:00 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Sarcastro,
I merit brackets at last! ;-)
I have 2 problems with your premise. First that those folks have people that consider them neighbors. It’s not like here where freedom of speech and rule of law are the norm. Protesting is not a universal human reaction, it seems more of a modern thing. And in the more totalitarian Middle East, Iran has shown us it the stakes can be much higher.
I don’t mean “protest” in the sense of “Let’s make some big signs and walk picket lines!” I mean what average Americans would do if they heard a few of their neighbors saying, oh, “Heard them Russkies killed a thousand ragheads last night in Chechnya. Let’s us have a barbecue!” I mean recoil instantly, from the sentiment and from the people uttering it. If this really is a tiny minority, there’s no excuse for helping it to feel larger than it is.
And, well, you’re right: “celebration of terrorism does not imply the person is a terrorist.” S/he could be the yet viler sort of person who eggs on terrorists while risking nothing personally. Thanks for the clarification.
Second is the idea that if you do not protest people who are happy about terrorism you must be kind of a pseudo-enemy. Not protesting an inappropriate celebration does not imply approval, and celebration of terrorism does not imply the person is a terrorist.
I can imagine living next door to a Klansman and being civil, but I’d draw the line at public celebration of atrocities. If your next-door neighbor is throwing a “Hallelujah! More dead mud people!” party, and your most pointed reaction is to sit it out, I may understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t have to admire it.
August 9, 2010, 6:06 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
Piss off. Young men from my hometown have been coming home in body bags because of what happened at ground zero.
You piss off. Our men and women and uniform (of which non-trivial numbers are Muslims) are there to defend our liberty, which includes the free exercise of religion, including Islam.
August 9, 2010, 6:07 pmChrisTS says:
saintsimon:
I agree with your comments on our religion-obsession in this country.
However, your remark that “if Islam has yet to figure out the whole modernity thing” [then XYZ] shares with many of the comments here the trait of referring to a religion as though it is its adherents. It may be that many Muslims have not gotten the modernity thing figured out, but I think it is odd, at least, to suggest that the religion has not.
After all, plenty of Christians, for example, seem to be having difficulty with modernity, too, but it would be a mistake to say that ‘Christianity’ has such a problem.
August 9, 2010, 6:07 pmHalli Casser-Jayne says:
They may have the law on their side, but they don’t have sentiment. And the more they stand resolute in forcing their insensitivity down the throats of Americans, the more they hurt their cause. They only feed people’s hurt, anger, and prejudices. Hardly smart on their part.
August 9, 2010, 6:08 pmMorat20 says:
You’ll be waiting an AWFULLY long time. No one in New York cares. You know, the people with the giant hole in the ground that would be the most sensitive to things like that?
They don’t care. The people that DO care seem to, strangely, all be from other states. A year from now those outraged folks will be outraged about something else, and the people in New York will still not care.
August 9, 2010, 6:09 pmBob from Ohio says:
What an ignorant statement. I guess Ft. Hood and Detroit are now coastal cities.
I am actually on your general side about this (for once) but this STFU “rubes” attitude shown here is highly annoying.
August 9, 2010, 6:12 pmRandy says:
Crunchy Frog: “Young men from my hometown have been coming home in body bags because of what happened at ground zero.”
Actually, none of the the men or women fighting in Iraq have anything to do with 9/11. As Dick Cheney admitted, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, despite his and Bush’s pronouncements to the contrary.
I do believe everyone in American has a right to voice an opinion on what goes on with regards to the memorial in NYC and area immediately surrounding it, but this mosque is a few blocks away from it. Why anyone should care is really beyond me.
And if you truly believe that all muslims are the enemy, we have a lot more things to worry about that one mosque.
August 9, 2010, 6:21 pmChrisTS says:
Michelle:
Just jumping in on the discussion of the ‘neighbors’ who did not silence the celebrants:
as I recall, the photos/videos we saw showed people in the street, shouting and screaming, and waving guns. Given the level of hatred towards the US in Palestine, I think only a fool would have bravely tried to censor the celebration.
August 9, 2010, 6:22 pmChrisTS says:
Well said – although I think not stooping to conquer is always the better path. :-)
August 9, 2010, 6:28 pmRandy says:
Bob from Ohio: “What an ignorant statement. I guess Ft. Hood and Detroit are now coastal cities.”
It’s rather ironic that the one non-coastal city that HAS been attacked was the Oklahoma City bomber. And as I recall, Timothy McVeigh qualified as a ‘real American.’ And he also predicted racial war and hoped that the bombing would cause an uprising of ‘real Americans’ to take their country back.
One would think, then, that any paramilitary organization would be criticized as much as the muslims are, since so many of them agree with McVeigh.
Come to think of it, pretty much all of the Tea Partiers have very similar views to McVeigh. I think we should fly airplanes into their headquarters and deny them the ability to march and organize. After all, if your ideology aligns itself with someone who actually blew up a building, then you must obviously agree with the war, right?
August 9, 2010, 6:28 pmDilan Esper says:
So? People disapprove of your religion bashing … sounds perfectly acceptable in a ‘free market of ideas’ for them to bash your religion-bashing. There is nothing shocking that people that believe X disapprove of people that believe ~X and call it disparaging names. Atheists that call religious beliefs ‘implausible’ (or worse), theists that call atheism ‘bankrupt’ or ‘immoral’ (or worse). What would truly be shocking is the absence of such disdain.
That’s true enough, but it certainly looks to me like the point of calling critics of religion “bigots” is to imply that their views should be driven out of polite society, just like the views of racial segregationists are.
And that’s really the opposite of what we should want.
August 9, 2010, 6:30 pmDilan Esper says:
What an ignorant statement. I guess Ft. Hood and Detroit are now coastal cities.
When 3,000 people are killed in those places, we’ll talk.
August 9, 2010, 6:32 pmChrisTS says:
Was it on this thread that someone referenced junior high school students with too much time on their hands?
August 9, 2010, 6:32 pmt1 says:
A civilian target like, say, a wedding party struck by a drone, or a photographer cut in half by a 30MM cannon, or a bombing of civilians who gather to try to salvage fuel from a bombed tanker?
August 9, 2010, 6:33 pmShelbyC says:
I hate to use these terms, but the policticians who want the government to stop this mosque must hate everything America stands for.
August 9, 2010, 6:39 pmbbbeard says:
I think there were 19 hijackers (20 if you count Zacharias Moussaoui, but the 20th hijacker meme is controversial). There are approximately 1.6 billion Muslims. I wish you were able to start this conversation knowing even the barest of facts about what happened on 9/11.
August 9, 2010, 6:45 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Randy, I think you’re wrong about that. Bush went to great lengths, as I recall, to say that Iraq did not have anything to do with 9/11. Can you find anything to the contrary?
August 9, 2010, 6:55 pmDilan Esper says:
Laura:
This is off the point, but Bush actually was careful only in the sense of choosing his words carefully so that he could later deny that he meant that, just like Bill Clinton’s denials of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
He deliberately juxtaposed 9/11 and Iraq / Saddam Hussein over and over again, and his aides and members of the Republican message machine took it further and claimed a direct connection. Meanwhile, he did nothing to disavow those statements and didn’t make his “there is no connection” statement until years later.
Don’t confuse maintaining deniability with actually disavowing a connection. All Bush did was maintain deniability.
August 9, 2010, 7:00 pmSarcastro says:
[I think this is comparing the reactions of you, who lives in a free society, to those who live in a totalitarian society, and I am not sure that is valid. Indeed, looking at the conclusion that seems to force – that the majority of the Muslim world must be a terrorist or weasily enabler – I’d need more proof to make that jump. (At least that seems to be the conclusion you are implying by the evidence you are putting forth – correct me if I misunderstand)
I must also disagree with your “The instinctive reaction of nearly all Americans to a massive strike at a civilian target anywhere would be shock and horror” statement. I daresay many people have dehumanized the enemy to the extent that there would be a strong “got what’s coming to them” sentiment. Maybe not dancing, but certainly barely-concealed gloating in a segment of the population. Hell, some on the left were smug about 9-11. I call them assholes, but not potential terrorists. Granted, my sense comes from some of the more fringey blogs I read.
Empathy for one’s enemy, and distinguishing who is our enemy, is a luxury. We have that luxury. Many of those on the street in the Middle East do not, either due to lack of information or the pressures of their government/local strongman. To be sure, they are angry at us for various reason. But angry does not mean at war, and it does not mean potential terrorist. Such a broad brush is both counterproductive and morally wrong.
August 9, 2010, 7:02 pmgrog says:
I would love to see a citation for your assertion that some substantial portion of Muslims place far more weight on symbolism than, say, the people arguing that Cordoba shouldn’t be built. Bluntly, this looks like transparent projection.
Hey, Bob. Seeing as how NY pays a buck for every $.79 in federal money, and Ohio gets a $1.05 (cite), I think NY has a stronger claim on what happens in Ohio than the reverse.
But we New Yorkers are practical. How about you and Boehner take up a collection (maybe he could sell pumpkins) and buy the WTC ruins? We’ll ship them over to you and you can do whatever it is salt-of-the-earth Ohioans do with sacred spaces. Completely win-win – you can pray to
MeccaWTC conveniently and sell tickets after checking pilgrims’ religious status, we’ll get rid of a huge stupid contentious argument about the memorial, and everyone gets to be happy. Deal?Right. Tell me again who places way too much weight on symbolism?
August 9, 2010, 7:03 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Cite? Because when I’ve gone looking for this before, I can only find him explaining that there was not a connection. I’d really like to see what you’re talking about.
August 9, 2010, 7:10 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
NY Times
Tolerance is cool. I’d like to see it spelled out, exactly who is being taught to tolerate what, and who is doing the teaching. Also, per the article, all locals aren’t really on board with this thing.
August 9, 2010, 7:20 pmCrunchy Frog says:
And God bless them. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them, and pray that they finish the job sooner rather than later, that they comport themselves with honor, and that the REMFs in Washington quit making their lives more difficult than it already needs to be.
Oh, and by the way: Free exercise of religion does not mean freedom from criticism. IIRC, there was zero condemnation of the 9/11 hijackers from any Islamic group, only cries of, “Don’t discriminate against us,” immediately afterwards. No attempt at solidarity with nonmuslims. No shock and dismay that anyone would do such a thing in the name of Allah. Nothing. Just “It wasn’t us!”
(sarc) Besides, I thought all the Muslims had taken the gay way out of the service. (/sarc)
August 9, 2010, 7:24 pmbbbeard says:
Here’s an interesting article about Shinto in post-war Hawaii.
So… if you want to push this analogy, can we follow this example? Can we round up all the Muslim leaders and deport them? Can we wait until after we have won the war against radical Islam to allow them to build mosques in American cities?
Suppose there had been a proposal in 1943 to build a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor, funded by shadowy Japanese businessmen, led by a radical priest who blamed America for the attack on Pearl Harbor, who promised endless waves of fanatic Shinto warriors unless there was a change in the world order that favored Japan. Do you really suppose that we would have permitted such a monstrosity to be built? Would it really have supported “the principles that help make America free and great”?
Eugene: was it constitutional for the authorities to arrest Shinto priests and send them to concentration camps? How do you reconcile the Korematsu decision and the First Amendment? Personally, I find the decision in Korematsu to be abhorrent, but it is still the law of the land, is it not? Given that, how can you say the First Amendment case in the Ground Zero Mosque is open and shut?
August 9, 2010, 7:25 pmDilan Esper says:
Laura:
Next time, do your own googling:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060514140012/http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf
August 9, 2010, 7:26 pmCrunchy Frog says:
What Bush did say is that 9/11 changed how we look at the world, and that we could no longer wait for threats to become ‘imminent’. At the time, everything pointed to Iraq having bio and chem weapons, and was getting close on the nuclear side as well. Saddam Hussein did nothing to dispel such rumors; if anything, he encouraged them to cower his neighbors into submission. He had already used them in the past, both internally against the Kurds, and in the conflict with Iran. He wanted the world to take him seriously. We did.
At any rate, Randy deliberately conflated Iraq and Afghanistan, which is where the bulk of hostilities are currently, and where even Obama admits we have a legitimate grievance.
August 9, 2010, 7:33 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Dilan, next time link to something that says what you say it says. Where in that document does President Bush say anything about Iraq and 9/11? He did talk about Iraq and al Qaeda. Are you under the impression that al Qaeda never set foot in Iraq?
Here.
Note the date on the article. Note “Joe Biden, the US Vice-President”. And before you tell me that al Qaeda must have moved in after we went into Iraq, note the associate’s name: al-Baghdadi.
If all you’ve got is mind-reading of people you detest, so you can make up reasons to detest them some more, I’m not interested.
August 9, 2010, 7:39 pmyankee says:
You do not recall correctly. See, e.g., the scores of examples here. A bunch of the links are dead, but there are a lot that aren’t.
OK, I had the numbers wrong. This refutes my point how? Condemning 1.6 billion for the actions of 19 or 20 is just as crazy as condemning 800 million for the acts of 11 (my incorrect numbers).
August 9, 2010, 7:41 pmyankee says:
That’s only because when the U.S. government and its allies attack a civilian target, we call it “regrettable but necessary collateral damage.”
August 9, 2010, 7:45 pmHarryEagar says:
I wouldn’t think it would get so far, but if it did get litigated I’d bet the Becket Fund would pitch in on behalf of the First Amendment.
August 9, 2010, 7:46 pmConstantin says:
This sentiment has been alleged probably twenty times on this thread. It’s false.
August 9, 2010, 7:50 pmChrisTS says:
sarcastro:
Even though you did not close the brackets, bless you.
August 9, 2010, 7:53 pmChrisTS says:
Shelb: Perhaps couching it in terms of ‘misunderstanding’ rather than ‘hating’ would make it less difficult to say?
August 9, 2010, 7:56 pmBrianTH says:
On the subject of Muslims being vital allies in our efforts against Islamic terrorists: I think some of the analogies above don’t go far enough. It would be more like saying there should be no British presence near a WWII memorial, since we fought WWII against some Europeans.
On the subject of proper reactions to somebody doing something stupid in your neighborhood: in most scenarios, I’m pretty sure the reaction I would have wouldn’t show up on TVs around the world in fact, I’d probably say something on the Internet somewhere. My point is that expecting an instant response that gets exactly the same media coverage seems to me to be setting an inappropriate standard.
August 9, 2010, 8:04 pmByomtov says:
If a “small minority of radicals” in your own neighborhood took, say, the massacre of a few thousand blacks by a white supremacist as an occasion for a block party, I would hope that you and most of your neighbors would react on a large scale. No violence necessary; just your ordinary, instinctive “these people are seriously sick puppies, and I want absolutely no part of what they’re cheering about.”
The cheering was in Palestine. Population about 4 million. There are 200 million Muslims in Indonesia, and about 160 million in India. The Muslim population of the US and the UK combined is roughly equal to that of Palestine.
August 9, 2010, 8:06 pmDale says:
Here’s an interesting twist…next to the proposed Mosque.
MONDAY’S GREGALOGUE: MY NEW GAY BAR
August 9, 2010, 8:07 pmhttp://www.dailygut.com/?i=4696
Daniel Chapman says:
I oppose this mosque on principle. It’s offensive because I do believe it is intended to be a monument of the triumph of the Jihad over America on 9/11. Our Constitution prevents the government from doing anything to stop it, but more power to anyone who speaks out against it.
I also think the 30% or so of this thread that I got through before skipping the rest in disgust is almost equally offensive. You guys have very strange ideas about the average American conservative…
August 9, 2010, 8:10 pmRandy says:
Laura: “Randy, I think you’re wrong about that. Bush went to great lengths, as I recall, to say that Iraq did not have an
Dilan: “He deliberately juxtaposed 9/11 and Iraq / Saddam Hussein over and over again, and his aides and members of the Republican message machine took it further and claimed a direct connection. Meanwhile, he did nothing to disavow those statements and didn’t make his “there is no connection” statement until years later.
Don’t confuse maintaining deniability with actually disavowing a connection. All Bush did was maintain deniability.”
Exactly. And of course it worked. By the time we actually started the Iraq war, a majority of Americans were sure that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, despite the fact that there was no evidence that they were.
I didn’t deliberately conflate Afghanistan with Iraq. In fact, I didn’t mention Afghanistan at all.
August 9, 2010, 8:18 pmRandy says:
“MONDAY’S GREGALOGUE: MY NEW GAY BAR”
Actually, if he did this, he would be a great idea. I’d support it! I knew a guy once who had started up an Islamic Gay Society or something of that sorts several years ago to bridge the gap between Americans and the middle east, at least in the gay community. He had pretty good success, but I haven’t heard from him in a while.
One of his theories is a sort of make love, not war, thing. Considering the fact that so many middle easterners are pretty hot, I can’t think of a better way to advance a dialog between our two cultures.
AFter all, if you’re getting what you want, it’s usually pretty pointless to go on a destructive rampage. I’m pretty sure it would work for you straights too. Let’s all try it!
August 9, 2010, 8:24 pmyankee says:
What evidence do you have for this? Have the people who run it said so, or do you have telepathic powers the rest of us don’t?
August 9, 2010, 8:24 pmRandy says:
As I recall, the neo- Nazis had a right to march in Skokie, and the ACLU backed them up 100%. Legal right? Of course. Inconsiderate? Of course. But legal rights are the trump card, and in the long run, Skokie survived.
August 9, 2010, 8:26 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Randy, is all you have Dilan’s link? Or do you have some evidence that President Bush meant for people to understand that Iraq was behind 9/11 other than the fact that you want him to have meant that, so that you can dislike him more? I mean, if that’s it, OK. I hate making a fool of myself by asserting things that aren’t true, so if you have somewhere, some evidence that Bush linked Iraq to 9/11, I wish you’d pony up.
August 9, 2010, 8:27 pms. danori says:
Legal predecent exists for denying the mosque, so those who oppose it being built are not necessarily going against the Constitution (as it’s been applied in Reynolds v. US and other cases). An argument broadly similar to the one made in Reynolds, for instance, can be made here: building the mosque in this precise spot will undermine public order/safety, particularly the safety of the mosque itself (I can easily imagine some wannabe Eric Rudolph extremist-type bombing the place).
While I’m not especially troubled by the mosque being built, I am troubled by those (like Volokh) who trot out the first amendment as if it’s some rhetorical trump card that ends the debate. It doesn’t end the debate, but it does require us to channel the debate along constitutional lines. And to that end, it’s hard to argue that free exercise rights are being denied when numerous mosques exists throughout NYC, and no one is denying Muslims their right to believe, and to practice their beliefs, etc. Now, if NYC proposed a city-wide ban on new mosques, then yes, the free exercise argument espoused by Zakaria and Volokh and others would be more persuasive.
August 9, 2010, 8:30 pmAnton says:
Greg Gutfeld: I’m raising money to build a Muslim gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque
August 9, 2010, 8:30 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
byomtov,
The cheering was in Palestine. Population about 4 million. There are 200 million Muslims in Indonesia, and about 160 million in India. The Muslim population of the US and the UK combined is roughly equal to that of Palestine.
OK. Between this and ChrisTS’s post about how no sane person would try to argue with armed people bent on celebrating, and Sarcastro’s about totalitarian societies, I think I get the picture. The Muslims who actually rejoice whenever a random bunch of infidels is burned alive are — proportionally — very, very few. Unfortunately, they do tend to have the guns and/or the political power in many places. Therefore we ought to cut the other cohort — the vast majority of Muslims — some slack. These aren’t their religious brothers; they’re deluded madmen. Besides, they’re armed.
That’s all entirely understandable.
August 9, 2010, 8:45 pmBrianTH says:
What is the principled distinction between Lower Manhattan and all of NYC? What is the principled distinction between a mosque and just praying?
The truth is that you’ve already crossed the line when you single out one particular religion and apply these sorts of unique restrictions, regardless of whether you can imagine other restrictions that would be even worse.
August 9, 2010, 8:57 pmOwen H. says:
On the other hand, very few would be condemning all whites, either.
Besides, there was plenty of condemnation from the Muslim world. Fatwas against terrorism and everything. But that doesn’t fit your world view, so you ignored it.
August 9, 2010, 9:06 pmbbbeard says:
There is certainly a reasonable basis for concluding that these Muslims in particular have sided with the jihadists. Were that not the case, if in fact it were the case that this Imam held the terrorists to be responsible for their terrorism, the mosque would be far less controversial, IMHO. But Imam Rauf has held America responsible for the 9/11 attacks because of his view that Western values threaten Islam. And that has only added fuel to the fire. To someone of Eugene’s views, none of this matters — religion is a inviolable cover, via the First Amendment, for any kind of anti-American activity. I demur. I think there are cases when something other than religion opens the door to Federal involvement in ecclesiastical matters.
August 9, 2010, 9:10 pmMichael Ejercito says:
Refusing to zone the area for a mosque because it is a mosque violates both the New York Constitution’s and the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion.
This is an open and shut case.
I do not know about that. See Kelo v. New London
How does Reynolds apply?
August 9, 2010, 9:10 pmbbbeard says:
If the NRA had actually issued statements blaming the victims of Columbine for their insults to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, and had suggested that there were endless legions of like-minded gun nuts whose rage could only be modulated if high schools changed their attitudes about violent video games and Goth culture… then you might have a point. But frankly, I think you don’t.
August 9, 2010, 9:17 pmmack says:
On 9/11 many people died in NYC – but not all were native New Yorkers – and the Pentagon was attacked – and brave citizens on a plane stopped another attack and died. It wasn’t just New Yorkers that cried and wept that day, nor was it soley New Yorkers that volunteered to search and rescue and to go to war. And the body bags that have come back have come back to small towns throughout america (disprortionally so, as those stupid rubes who should STFU volunteer in disproportionate numbers for front line service). And when they volunteered they didn’t tell the government whether they were going to Iraq or Afganistan – they served and died where they were told to go – in what they believed to be service to their country which includes NY.
So yes, NYC can decide in accordance with the law and the constitution whether or not a mosque gets built. And it is better that it be built than we as a nation should compromise the principles we are supposed to uphold. And muslims and the religion of Islam should be as respected as any other religious or non-religious group.
But people also have a right to voice their opinions about the moral rightness or sensitivity of building the mosque and to question the motives of those behind it. By itself that does not make someone a bigot or stupid. And the evidence suggests, despite comments in this thread to the contrary, that in fact most people in NYC do not want the mosque built and do strongly object to it.
So maybe instead of calling people rubes, bigots, and idiots – maybe we could say that people disagree. Perhaps all this energy could be better spent building something appropriate where that hole in the ground remains nine years after.
August 9, 2010, 9:24 pmbbbeard says:
Thanks for bringing this up. I don’t agree that it is none of our business. In fact, I think that one of the interesting things about this controversy is that we do indeed feel a collective responsibility about the Ground Zero site. If it were really the case that the attack on the World Trade Center were a local affair, flags would not have sprouted on homes from Nome to Miami. If it were really the case that the attack on the World Trade Center were a local affair, the country would not have gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was a national trauma. We understand 9/11 saw an attack on America, even if the zoning boards in New York City have forgotten this. It is neither distant in time nor faded in memory for us. And many of us take a dim view of the radical Imams and zoning board ninnies who think this mosque is a good idea.
August 9, 2010, 9:40 pmTom Maguire says:
Re:
I dispute that. The site was actually badly damaged in the 9/11 attack – the landing gear of one of the two jetliners crashed through the roof and put the building out of service.
In common with some other cultures, there is an Islamic tradition of the Victory Mosque built on the ruins of a vanquished enemy. Someone trying to obtain real estate destroyed in the 9/11 attacks would love this property. Are there other comparable properties available on the market and not tied up in the grand Ground Zero rebuilding project? I don’t know, but there can’t be many.
From the Times:
And dare I ask? Legally, I assume the answer does not change even if Bin Laden himself is a financial backer of the project (whose backers are still unknown). Does it bother anyone that this does not even bother people like Mayor Bloomberg?
August 9, 2010, 9:44 pmpc says:
From your link: “Broken down by borough, Manhattan was the most in favor of the mosque, with only 36 percent of residents against it. On the other end of the spectrum was Staten Island, where 73 percent of respondents were opposed.”
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. This is why I’m laughing. It seems the people that want to have the least to do with NYC are the ones that tend to stick their noses in our business the most.
August 9, 2010, 9:47 pmSarcastro says:
And the Islamic hive-mind all think this way! They’re even naming it after another Victory Mosque, which is proof this is a victory! It was the location of the Holy Landing Gear Damage, didja hear?
Good lord, there are Mosques all over New York City! So many victories! Some even within the 9-11 Hallowed Dust Cloud!
I can hear them laughing at us in my head right now! STOP LAUGHING MUSLIMS! I AM ON TO YOUR TRICKY VICTORY WAYS!
August 9, 2010, 9:55 pmGuy says:
Sure, religious behavior is not automatically immune, if you have a secular purpose behind the law and religious hatred is not behind it, then the Constitution does not necessarily require a special exemption (though RFRA and similar laws might) but going after someone specifically because they are building a mosque is pretty blatantly unconstitutional unless you’ve got a truly stunning argument up your sleeve. Seems open and shut to me.
August 9, 2010, 9:56 pmByomtov says:
Tom Maguire,
And dare I ask?
I think it’s the Trilateral Commission, or maybe the Muslim allies of the Elders of Zion. Not sure. Dangerous to speculate. Watch yourself.
August 9, 2010, 10:16 pmRicardo says:
Hitchens had it exactly right in his column: the mosque opponents have stolen all of their arguments right out of the playbook of Muslim outrage. To get your way, you declare that something is “offensive” and that it will inspire violence on the part of unnamed extremists.
Not good enough. Even if this was a valid argument, the neighbors of this proposed mosque appear to be in favor of it. And yes, the First Amendment is a trump card to this argument and rightly so. The alternative is to have public policy dictated by crackpots and extremists who are prepared to use violence to get their way.
Not to mention the added hypocrisy of the argument, since the U.S. has already undertaken to build an enormous office tower on the site of Ground Zero that will almost certainly be a prime terrorist target.
August 9, 2010, 10:22 pmbbbeard says:
Take all the offense you want, buster. The point you don’t want to acknowledge is that we are all stakeholders in Ground Zero. Not shareholders, but definitely stakeholders.
August 9, 2010, 10:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Ricardo,
Quite right. It’s disgusting to oppose building a mosque because we can’t be responsible for what crazed Americans might do once they see it. So far the “I’m offended; therefore someone must die” dynamic has been all on the other side. Can we keep it there, please?
August 9, 2010, 10:33 pmShelbyC says:
Kelo upheld economic development takings, not supression of religion takings.
August 9, 2010, 11:02 pmbbbeard says:
New York City is a strangely dysfunctional place. Even so, Americans recognize it as part of America, even when many NYC-Americans don’t. And many Americans are willing to take a stand against the kind of PC-gone-wild that embraces an enemy mosque at Ground Zero. Heck, many Americans unashamedly criticized the culture of the old Times Square, run amok with hookers and drugs, even while “no one in New York City cared”, taken as they were with some kind of crazy notion that cosmopolitanism required putting up with garbage in the streets…. Eventually enough New Yorkers came to their senses and Times Square got cleaned up. Maybe the same will happen with this mosque.
August 9, 2010, 11:04 pmL says:
You guys don’t get it. When liberals don’t conform to Squirtus’ stereotype of liberals, it doesn’t show a flaw in the stereotype; it shows that liberals are hypocrites.
August 9, 2010, 11:05 pmL says:
Does that “all” include American Muslims?
August 9, 2010, 11:07 pmSarcastro says:
New York better stop hogging all the 9-11 victimhood now that they’re not using it!
August 9, 2010, 11:07 pmRicardo says:
Sure, and the actual site of Ground Zero is currently being developed. The fact that it has taken so long ought to have an obvious explanation to those who really believe in free markets — government rarely builds things on time due to bickering among different mid-level bureaucrats, “stakeholders” and lack of public pressure and oversight. Meanwhile, the privately led construction of Corboda House is expected to sail ahead.
If you want government to seize control of property surrounding Ground Zero on behalf of the stakeholding public, you can look forward to several more years of the property sitting abandoned. And that’s no monument to the people who died that day at all.
August 9, 2010, 11:09 pmbbbeard says:
This may require some thought on your part, but do you understand how it could be that Saddam did not take part in the planning for 9/11, but was part of the larger threat that confronted us in the days and months afterwards? We were at war with Saddam on the 10th of September, in fact since the First Gulf War. Saddam hosted a dozen or more terrorist groups on his soil, sometimes in Iraqi government offices. He spent billions of dollars corrupting the international system, bribing UN officials and stiffarming the IAEA and other weapons inspectors. After 9/11 there was no way we could tolerate the threat he posed. So the question of whether there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11 is not of the Yes/No variety. You may not be able to handle that level of complexity, but thank goodness President Bush was.
Let me put it this way: we were far more justified invading Iraq and deposing Saddam than we were invading Germany and deposing Hitler. Just as Saddam had no part in 9/11, but his ouster had everything to do with the threat he posed in the context of 9/11, Hitler had no part in Pearl Harbor, but his downfall was owed to the overreach of Imperial Japan. If you can’t grasp this, I can only surmise you would have been one of the lonely few protesting the European campaign in 1943.
August 9, 2010, 11:24 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Seconded, even as I agree entirely with EV’s post (as I believe they are orthogonal and therefore not at all contradictory).
August 10, 2010, 12:05 ambbbeard says:
It means you know less than nothing about terrorism.
August 10, 2010, 12:06 amOrenWithAnE says:
This is indeed true. Specifically there is the fact that should have undoubtedly preferred the evil-secular Baath party to the evil-religious AQ. Gotta enjoy having an enemy divided amongst themselves.
Oh, that and Bin Laden’s great personal slight at the Suadi refusal of his volunteer service defending the Kingdom against the godless Saddam, in favor of Cheney’s DOD. Very interesting actually, since he was fresh off the victory against the godless Soviets and wanted to go 2/2.
August 10, 2010, 12:17 amChris Travers says:
I’m probably not close enough to defend it to the death, but I would defend it.
I think all of us would be so incapacitated with laughter do do anything of the sort.
August 10, 2010, 12:23 amChris Travers says:
Certainly there was a major threat posed by Saddam: that our troops that were stationed in Saudi Arabia to contain Saddam would be a major propaganda tool for recruiting terrorists…. So of course we invaded Iraq with the idea that even if that provided the same opportunities, at least we could get our troops out of Saudi Arabia…..
That was good thinking…..
August 10, 2010, 12:25 amChris Travers says:
The International Crisis group looked at this issue just after Powell’s presentation to the UN. They concluded that Powell in fact presented some evidence of AQ operations in Iraq at the time, but these were inconclusive.
However, here’s the kicker: if one took all the evidence presented as true, then AQ wasn’t in league with Saddam but was operating out of the No-Fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan, in areas controlled by our alleged allies, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
It’s quite likely that AQ was in Iraq working on Kurdish uprising stuff with the same groups that were going to be our allies once we invaded.
August 10, 2010, 12:30 amRicardo says:
This is all true except for the part about AQ working with people who were to be our allies. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was founded by socialists Jalal Talabani (the current Iraqi President) and Nawshirwan Mustafa. It is very much a secular, social democratic movement that is equally opposed to Islamism and Baathism. The PUK was the victim of a terrorist attack launched by allies of the Wahhabist Ansar al-Islam which is indeed affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Ansar al-Islam’s main reason for existing was to put Iraqi Kurdistan under Islamic law and their main enemy was the PUK and other affiliated groups. U.S. commandos apparently entered Iraqi Kurdistan before the main invasion and dealt some major damage to the Islamists there.
August 10, 2010, 12:51 ambbbeard says:
Actually, by my definition of “stakeholder”, all Muslims everywhere are stakeholders. It doesn’t mean we should have a stakeholder vote and hand the winners the keys to Ground Zero, but it does mean we need to find our way together to a better solution than the one that is on the table.
August 10, 2010, 1:00 amThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
But people also have a right to voice their opinions…
Of course they do. We also have the right to voice a rebuttal illustrating that the anti-mosque people are bigoted.
By itself that does not make someone a bigot or stupid.
It does if the opinions are demonstrably bigoted. Uh duh.
August 10, 2010, 1:02 amRicardo says:
Moussaoui’s involvement in the plot is in serious doubt. He appears to have been a somewhat unstable AQ “groupie” who was handed a role to possibly pilot a 5th airplane on 9/11. What his exact role was, to what extent he was involved in the main operation and to what extent he was receiving AQ resources does seem controversial.
On the other hand, Gitmo inmate Mohammed al-Qahtani does appear to have a connection to AQ and flew to Orlando, FL at the same time a hijacking team was already present there. Both KSM and al-Qahtani have admitted (under torture, though) that he was a hijacker who was supposed to have been picked up at Orlando airport by fellow operatives but was instead refused entry by an immigration inspector who smelled something fishy in his story (he couldn’t speak English, had only a small amount of cash on hand and his stated purpose for visiting the U.S. on a tourist visa changed during the interview).
It appears likely that he was intended as a “muscle hijacker” on Flight 93 — the only flight that had four instead of five hijackers on board. The other three planes all had one pilot and four muscle hijackers who intimidated passengers with knives or (maybe) box-cutters. Like al-Qahtani, the other muscle hijackers were mostly young Saudi men who lived in provincial areas, spoke little to no English and had only a high school education. This is the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission report and appears to be the conclusion of the military and the intelligence community as well, given al-Qahtani’s continued detention at Gitmo.
August 10, 2010, 1:08 amThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
And many Americans are willing to take a stand against the kind of PC-gone-wild that embraces an enemy mosque at Ground Zero.
An “enemy mosque”? You, sir, are a bigot.
I want to know when the hell all these public displays of bigotry became acceptable on what was a very academically oriented blog.
Many Americans unashamedly criticized the culture of the old Times Square, run amok with hookers and drugs, even while “no one in New York City cared”
So now you equate Islam with “hookers and drugs.” Bigot.
August 10, 2010, 1:15 amRandy says:
Laura: “Randy, I think you’re wrong about that. Bush went to great lengths, as I recall, to say that Iraq did not have anything to do with 9/11. Can you find anything to the contrary?”
Sure — check these out here and here.
August 10, 2010, 1:17 amGuy says:
I have a really stupid question that might sound intentionally dense, but it’s not: Why is putting a mosque near ground zero offensive? Is it something about this particular mosque? Or do we just hate all Muslims now or something? I don’t get it. Based on these arguments I really feel like there’s an important piece of background information I’m missing because I haven’t been following the story closely.
August 10, 2010, 1:25 amRandy says:
bbbread: “We were at war with Saddam on the 10th of September, in fact since the First Gulf War. Saddam hosted a dozen or more terrorist groups on his soil, sometimes in Iraqi government offices. He spent billions of dollars corrupting the international system, bribing UN officials and stiffarming the IAEA and other weapons inspectors. After 9/11 there was no way we could tolerate the threat he posed. So the question of whether there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11 is not of the Yes/No variety. You may not be able to handle that level of complexity, but thank goodness President Bush was.”
If any of that were true, then Bush could have at least made that argument. Generally, when you go to war, the people have a right to know the reason.
Later, of course, both Bush and Cheney admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So are you saying they lied to us? Why would that do that after we had already gone to war?
And if Saddam was a threat to us, that’s quite a turnaround. We were close friends with Saddam during the Reagan administration, giving him all sorts of materiel and advisors in his war with Iran.
August 10, 2010, 1:27 amGuy says:
I still don’t know why we went to war. I get the popular support for it – as irrational and unfocused, reason-wise, as it was, but I’m still not sure I get what the Bush Administration was trying to accomplish. Was it just WMD’s?
August 10, 2010, 1:43 amRicardo says:
At this point, if anyone knows of a truly unbiased recent history of the decision to go to war in Iraq based on publicly available documents, please chime in.
I think it was a confluence of factors. Saddam Hussein comes from a family of psychopaths and led what was objectively one of the most brutal regimes in the world at the time — only North Korea, Turkmenistan and a few others compare. He was a demonstrated threat both to his neighbors as well as to the Kurdish minority who he had tried to exterminate using sarin and mustard gas among other methods during the al-Anfal campaign.
Containing the obvious threat Saddam posed to the region meant keeping in place a crippling set of sanctions indefinitely and tolerating the continued misery of the Iraqi people. Bush continued the Clinton-Gore policy which set regime change in Iraq as the ultimate goal of U.S. policy. Even if somehow Saddam were to have been removed from power, that would have left a power vacuum to be filled by the even more psychopathic son of Saddam, Uday. Uday, you may recall, was once the Sports Minister for Iraq who tortured athletes who did not perform perform adequately and is well-documented as a serial rapist.
August 10, 2010, 2:05 amRon Lewenberg says:
So we should have allowed Nazi allied Wotanists to run around in WW2? Of course not. We dealt with treason and sedition back then.
Please. This isn’t a mosque. It is about the a Muslim Brotherhood project.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-ground-zero-mosque-developer-muslim-brotherhood-roots-radical-dreams/?singlepage=true
The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
August 10, 2010, 2:28 amAl Qaeda is the outgrowth of Maktab al-Khadamat,
which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood theologian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Egyptian Islamic Jihad was formed by Muslim brotherhood members and merged with Al Qaeda.
The First Amendment does not protect sedition or treason and the Cordoba Initiative is both.
OrenWithAnE says:
The general point is the Islam (talking about the ‘center of mass’, surely there are liberal Muslims just as well as there are fundamentalist Christians and Jews) has not, to this point, accepted religious pluralism and toleration to the extent that Christianity has. Nor has it really accepted the general ‘render unto Caesar’ doctrine of the distinction between the law up there and the law down here. Gingrich is right to note that there are no synagogues or churchs in Riyadh.
The argument then goes that, game theoretically, is that it’s a losing strategy for the pro-pluralism person to cooperate with the anti-pluralism guy, since the latter would not reciprocate if the situation is reversed (indeed, it is seen that the latter does not, one does not need to speculate). Instead, the winning strategy is only to cooperate with those that, given the power, would likewise cooperate with you.
The Mosque then stands in for our perceived acquiescence in the face of Muslim refusal to play by a fair set of rules. It becomes laden with the entire symbolism of a Muslim world that, by and large, does not tolerate pluralism within its own ranks but demands that we afford it equal bearing in ours. Tolerance for the intolerant, it is argued, is cultural suicide — that the “price of entry” into a pluralistic society is accepting the premise as applying to all.
The argument is not without merit (at least when phrased non-hysterically) but ultimately it doesn’t persuade me. As Eugene says, it is a profound act of affirmation of our culture that we will allow the Mosque to be situated where it is — despite the palpable offense. Still, the concerns about whether Islam is moving towards both pluralism and secular-government are quite real, even if they get a generally poor rhetorical showing.
August 10, 2010, 2:29 amOrenWithAnE says:
You might want to look up the actual definition of treason.
At least you served a damn good purpose of demonstrated by point about the argument being weaker when it is hysterical.
August 10, 2010, 2:34 amOrenWithAnE says:
I’m not sure how one measures brutality in a way that makes regimes commensurable. Certainly Saddam was a sadistic monster, but he murdered relatively few of his countrymen (although brutally) as compared to the other psychopathic crazies in power around the world.
I’m not dismissing the conclusion, he was a monster. I’m just not sure by what metric he is superlative among the other leaders that did things that seem, by comparison, far worse. I’d much rather live in Saddam’s Iraq (where the majority of the citizens did not face the brutality of his regime) that Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
This actually goes to one of the ironies of totalitarian regimes — the more tyrannical, the more ‘in-control’ they are, the fewer people they need to torture and murder. A few executions go a long way.
August 10, 2010, 2:44 amRon Lewenberg says:
Not at all. Aushwitz was not in Poland. It was in the Krakow district of the General Government of the Greater German Reich. Poland did not exist as a country from September 1939 onwards. The Poles didn’t choose anything and as many gentile Poles died at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators as Polish Jews.
Given that 150,000 Polish Catholics including St. Maximilian Kolbe (who sheltered thousands of Jews) died at Auschwitz, a Catholic Church there would have been appropriate.
The Nazis were pagans, not Catholics.
August 10, 2010, 2:45 amRicardo says:
The “evidence” here consists of the fact that Imam Rauf’s father was at Al-Azhar University at the same time the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood was.
The rest consists of entirely of insinuations: referring to the Imam’s activities as a “front” or “cover” for some other set of activities without presenting any evidence whatsoever on what these presumably nefarious activities are.
Pretty unimpressive. Come back when you have something a bit more substantive than this.
August 10, 2010, 2:53 amRon Lewenberg says:
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
The Muslim Brotherhood shares the goals of Al Qaeda, with some members differing only in tactics.
I’m sure you’ll quote some court decision or penumbra. I don’t particularly care as the krytocrats have used these to render the Constitution meaningless. Either the text means something or it doesn’t. And the definition of treason is clear.
August 10, 2010, 2:53 amRon Lewenberg says:
Ricardo,
August 10, 2010, 2:56 amInstead of playing the modern equivalent of anti-anti-communist agitprop, let us investigate membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. Of course that would involve the FB?I investigated CAIR, ISNA etc instead of being used by them. But I appreciate your support.
Ricardo says:
One measure would be simply to ask what life is like there if you obey the law and don’t engage in any political activity. In repressive countries like Saudi Arabia and China, it is possible to avoid unwanted attention from the police by conforming to the rules. In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, merely having a distant relative who engaged in some political activity was enough to be arrested and tortured and — if you were female — raped. Iraq under Saddam adhered to the tyrannical rule that if there are no genuine enemies of the state or of law and order, one must occasionally accuse completely innocent people and brutalize them just to keep the population on its toes.
Truly a horrific regime. Not as bad as Pol Pot’s certainly, but my comment was aimed at comparing regimes that were then in power as of 2001-3. Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Mao, and others like them had already died or been thrown out of office by then. The past twenty years have actually been pretty exceptional in terms of the quality of governments that were around. Someone like Saddam Hussein was a genuine aberration. There were and are plenty of Ferdinand Marcos-style thieves and petty tyrants around but it’s important to realize that people like Saddam Hussein are in an entirely different category.
August 10, 2010, 3:08 amDilan Esper says:
This may require some thought on your part, but do you understand how it could be that Saddam did not take part in the planning for 9/11, but was part of the larger threat that confronted us in the days and months afterwards?
I love how somebody who apparently has blindly accepted the most simplistic and disastrous foreign policy theory of the last four decades– that Saddam Hussein was connected to Al Qaeda– is explaining it to me as if it “may require some thought on my part”.
August 10, 2010, 3:14 amRicardo says:
First, you confidently state that the mosque and community center is a Muslim Brotherhood project. Now, you state that the membership of the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be investigated. In other words, you admit you don’t actually have any evidence — if you did, it would be time for an indictment rather than investigation.
As for the “anti-anti-communist” canard, William F. Buckley expelled the John Birch Society from mainstream conservatism. The article you link to is a classic Bircher-style hit piece.
August 10, 2010, 3:19 amDilan Esper says:
By the way, I really don’t buy the “we are stakeholders” argument. Indeed, I don’t know what it even means.
People live in New York City. They need streets, sidewalks, hot dog stands, buildings to work in, and yes, houses of worship. Lots of them, because over 8 million people live in the City, including a good percentage of them on Manhattan Island.
I don’t see how I, 2,500 miles away in Los Angeles, am a “stakeholder” in any decisions they make about land use in any sense that matters. Sure, 9/11 was an attack on my country, and Al Qaeda threatened my city (which, by the way, is more than I can say for the Christian conservatives in flyover country whose religious beliefs are just as crazy as Islam is and who seem to be pissed about this). But in the end, I don’t live in New York City, and the people who do live there are entitled to a heck of a lot of deference as to how they run their city.
And I would say this even as to Ground Zero itself. If the duly elected officials of New York City feel that the proper course of action, based on the needs of the city, is to put something there that other people think is crass, that’s their right. Indeed, I would even say it’s the property owner’s right before we even get to the issue of the city.
Just because some jerks flew a couple of planes into some buildings didn’t condemn the World Trade Center site and turn it over to the conservative movement and the national Republican Party, nor did it strip Michael Bloomberg et al. of jurisdiction over the parcel. It’s theirs, not ours, and if we don’t like what they put there, we don’t have to visit New York.
August 10, 2010, 3:23 amMichael Ejercito says:
He was connected to those homicide bombers blowing up buses and restaurants in Israel.
August 10, 2010, 3:50 amThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
Please. This isn’t a mosque. It is about the a Muslim Brotherhood project.
Well, if you see it in Pajamas Media, it must be so.
August 10, 2010, 3:51 amDilan Esper says:
Michae:
Israel is surely an ally, but it does us little good and quite a lot of harm to treat the actions of Palestinian revolutionaries as an attack on us. We have enough problems as it is, and Israel is quite capable of handling its terrorism problem itself.
In any event, Saddam’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah was trivial compared to the support of wealthy Saudis and the Syrian government (as well as Iran, whom we aided by taking out Saddam). If it were really in our interest to take Israel’s side in its civil war, Saddam was about the 5th or 6th biggest problem the Israelis faced.
August 10, 2010, 4:54 amL says:
“Solution” to what? Don’t you need a problem before you need a solution? If this is a problem, why can’t we “solve” it by resorting to a few really basic bedrock principles: If you own property, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it as long as you comply with reasonable land-use restrictions. If you want to practice a religion, you can, as long as your religious practice doesn’t violate laws that have a neutral secular purpose. If you don’t like how someone is exercising their rights, you can complain about it.
I don’t see how muddying the issue by talking about who is a “stakeholder” helps things. You already have the right to disapprove of the way this land is being used, whether you are a stakeholder in Ground Zero or not.
August 10, 2010, 7:39 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Randy, your first link has Bush linking Hussein to al Quaeda again.
You realize that 9/11 and al Qaeda are not synonymous expressions, right? Al Qaeda is an international terrorist organization. The group in Afghanistan plotted 9/11.
The second reads like an op-ed expressing the same opinions you just expressed.
You still haven’t shown me Bush saying that Iraq was behind 9/11.
August 10, 2010, 7:53 ambbbeard says:
And you, sir, have a tenuous grasp of English. I said, “And many Americans are willing to take a stand against the kind of PC-gone-wild that embraces an enemy mosque at Ground Zero.” That statement includes a hypothetical. Whether or not Imam Rauf’s mosque qualifies as an “enemy mosque” is not entered into evidence. However, were it an enemy mosque, many Americans are willing to take a stand against it, even as some Americans are willing to defend it on the basis of it being a house of worship.
The word “bigot” is even less effective than “racist”. Find a new thesaurus.
You also seem to be stuck on some kind of totalism regarding Islam, that is, you seem to want to take as a premise that either all Muslims or none are our enemy. That is not my premise, so why would you think I equate [wrong word, cf. "compare"] Islam with hookers and drugs?. I think it is patently false that Islamic belief alone makes someone our enemy. However, it is even more abundantly clear that Islam does not make one our friend. Do you really believe that there are no mosques run by enemies of the United States, that “enemy mosque” is an oxymoron? Fool.
August 10, 2010, 8:05 ambbbeard says:
From your first link:
From your second link:
Everything else in both articles is journalistic impressionism. So, again, where is the evidence Bush said Saddam was in on 9/11? He didn’t.
It may not serve your purposes to acknowledge that Saddam had contacts with Al Qaeda, but that contact is part of the threat assessment, independent of whether Saddam had any foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks? Do you think Tojo kept Hitler briefed on plans for “Operation Z”, the attack on Pearl Harbor? Do you think Tojo had “contacts” with Hitler? Do you think Hitler was part of the larger threat of the Axis powers, or do you think the liberation of Europe was a costly mistake?
August 10, 2010, 8:16 ambbbeard says:
The Imam who is the spiritual leader associated with the Cordova Center plan is a fellow named Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Sufi Muslim who has written several books on Islam. He has made a number of statements that are controversial, such as saying America was an “accessory to the crime [of 9/11]“. I believe most Americans still think that we were attacked unjustifiably on 9/11, and we tend to react negatively to statements from Islamic leaders that imply we were at fault. And, equally controversial, he has refused to make other statements, e.g. he would not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization. So it’s not “Islam in general”, it’s mostly this particular Imam — although there are ancillary issues, such as the name “Cordova House” and the sources of the Imam’s funding.
August 10, 2010, 8:26 ambbbeard says:
How old are you? Do you not remember any of this? Congress debated and passed the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002“. It listed many reasons in our casus belli, including the ones I named (the extent of the corruption associated with the Oil-For-Food program was not known at the time, or it would have been included as well).
In re Saddam and 9/11, see my comment at 11:24 pm.
Here’s a research project for you:
(1) What was Saddam’s main battle rifle? What country
August 10, 2010, 8:42 amsupplied him with these?
(2) What was Saddam’s main battle tank? What country supplied him with these?
(3) What was Saddam’s front-line fighter aircraft? What country supplied him with these?
(4) What materiel did we supply Saddam?
bbbeard says:
Thanks, I love you too, Dilan.
August 10, 2010, 8:46 amNickp says:
Well, I dunno, how large were the cheering crowds? Did they overhwelm, or where they overwhelmed by, the Iranians participating in candlelight vigils to mourn the dead?
This webpage by the American Academy of Religion claims that the cheering Palestinian “crowds” were very small, and that expressions of grief and solidarity were widespread. Search “The terrorist act was strongly condemned” on the page.
August 10, 2010, 9:49 amDave N. says:
Your first link includes this quote:
Your second source is opinion/analysis, not a news story.
August 10, 2010, 11:03 amRandy says:
bbbeard: Saddam was our man throughout the 80s. Frankly, I’m not interested in proving the concept to someone who could do his own research on the matter. I lived through that era, and I had friends who were Iraqis at the time, and we had our Secy of Defense visiting Iraq several times to provide him aid. That Saddam took aid from others is also a given.
Laura: Here’s a link from BBC. Here’s The Daily News. More. And another for fun that shows that others jumped on the bandwagon.
I also found a 2008 article whereby Sarah Palin claims that Iraq was behind 9/11. What’s interesting is that 70% of Americans thought that Iraq was behind the attacks, when we now know that wasn’t true at all. Where did these people get that impression? And why wasn’t it corrected until well after we had gone to war?
August 10, 2010, 11:19 amOrenWithAnE says:
In Saudi Arabia I would be in jail the first time I went to the store to get a bottle of bourbon. I would take Saddam’s Iraq over today’s Saudi Arabia any day of the week. Were I a woman, the choice would be even easier. Sure, as you say, Saddam’s thugs raped the families of political enemies. Meanwhile every woman in Saudi Arabia is a prisoner in her own house, subject to the same indignity every day as a matter of course.
Calling Saddam more repressive than that is truly bizarre, in my book. I will go back to my original statement, however, that these things are not commensurable.
I emphasized a few times that I agree entirely. He was a monster. I’d still rather live under him than under the Saudis.
August 10, 2010, 11:35 ams. danori says:
Much public policy is already dictated by crackpots and extremists. Seriously, there are so many legal restrictions based on public safety concerns, where the threat to safety is invariably posed by irresponsible lunatic types, that what I’m arguing here would fall right in line with countless precedent cases.
My basic point is simply this: That throughout the news media and the blogosphere, including this legal blog, we see pundits making the claim that this is obviously open and shut. It’s not so obvious, once you take a closer look. There is a plausible legal-constitutional argument to be made that NYC should work with the mosque to relocate it to a safer place. Whether you like it or not, one can construct that legal argument, and it would be consistent with how the free exercise clause has been interpreted and applied in the past (where religious expressions from polygamy to peyote have been regulated) — it would be consistent, in other words, with the doctrine of stare decisis. The secular purpose would be essentially ‘keeping the peace.’ Now, I think this argument would be greatly strengthened by being able to demonstrate a clear and present danger if the mosque is built at the current proposed location. Sources of danger range from factors internal to the mosque (who is funding this?) and external (my Eric Rudolph example).
Of course all this is would be moot if they just volunteered to relocate — and by this point, relocating would be a public relations coup for them, a positive step toward showing the cross-cultural understanding they value so much.
August 10, 2010, 11:37 amRon Lewenberg says:
I quoted one site on Rauf. There have been other journalistic investigations of him including that by former Federal Prosecutor of the first WTC attack, Andrew McCarthy at National Review. http://article.nationalreview.com/438616/raufs-dawa-from-the-world-trade-center-rubble/andrew-c-mccarthy
In so far as anyone is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, Rauf is. But to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt, we would need the membership roles of ISNA and IIIT. Hence the formal investigation which I call on you to support.
So let me ask, is there any evidence short of direct terrorist activities, that you would stop this Muslim Brotherhood project? Or os futhering the goals of Al Qaeda sacred and inherently protect, despite the text of the Constitution and many many prior cases, because we are dealing with a religion?
August 10, 2010, 11:52 amRicardo says:
About five million foreigners living and working in Saudi Arabia might disagree with you on that score. One of the characteristics of totalitarian society is that life is so bad there, people will literally risk their lives to escape. Saudi Arabia clearly does not qualify.
August 10, 2010, 12:47 pmBrianTH says:
Oren does a nice job trying to articulate a somewhat reasonable version of the argument, but I honestly think he is giving most of the people who hold the relevant worldview too much credit.
There is a view being pushed in certain circles that the Judeo-Christian West is at war with Islam, and we are losing because we are too accomodating and they are remorseless. People who hold this view believe that Muslims, regardless of nationality, sect, or so on, should be treated as presumptively guilty of aiding Islam in its war on the Judeo-Christian West, unless they individually pass an unending series of ill-defined tests that would prove they somehow have become traitors to the Islamic side. Guilt by multi-step association and other such devices are perfectly fine grounds for deeming a particular Muslim to have failed to pass these tests. And so forth.
Given this worldview, a mosque anywhere in the United States is presumptively an enemy outpost, because of course it is going to be full of Muslims, who are presumptively enemies. Mosques, of course, are subject to the same sort of testing procedure to prove that they are traitors to the Islamic side of the ongoing war, and in fact if anyone ever associated with a mosque fails one of the tests, so does the mosque itself and everyone else ever associated with it.
And so forth. One might suggest I am exaggerating, but I think that is actually a pretty fair description of the worldview. In fact in a different context, with maybe a slight change in rhetoric, in substance I think this description of their worldview would be accepted by these people themselves.
August 10, 2010, 1:04 pmByomtov says:
Ron Lewenberg,
Not at all. Aushwitz was not in Poland. It was in the Krakow district of the General Government of the Greater German Reich. Poland did not exist as a country from September 1939 onwards. The Poles didn’t choose anything and as many gentile Poles died at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators as Polish Jews.
Are you seriously suggesting that because Poland was under German occupation that it did not exist, that there were no longer such people as “Poles,” or such a place as “Poland?”
The Nazis were pagans, not Catholics.
Here are some interesting photos of their pagan ceremonies.
Many Nazis were in fact Catholics, and Catholic chaplains accompanied and prayed for Nazi troops. After the war the Vatican helped war criminals, including possibly Eichmann, escape. In any case, the religious beliefs of the Nazis are only a small part of the picture. Their murderous anti-Semitism could never have arisen with out the centuries of anti-Semitism which preceded it. And in this there is no doubt that the church was a central character.
August 10, 2010, 1:25 pmChris Travers says:
The ICG did extensive writing on Ansar Al-Islam as well and this was not anywhere near their conclusion. I trust their works because of anyone writing before the war, they seemed to be the only ones whose intelligence stood up to post-war analysis.
August 10, 2010, 1:57 pmChris Travers says:
I’m a Norse Neopagan. The center of my pantheon is Odin (the Norse cognate of Wotan).
Thanks for giving me all the more reason to back the religious rights of Muslims in this country.
August 10, 2010, 2:00 pmChris Travers says:
Not true. The Volkishe movement was heavily persecuted by the Nazis.
August 10, 2010, 2:03 pmChris Travers says:
Great! Not only are we at war with Salafists! We are at war with Sufis as well!
Or so I am sure Sarcastro would say.
August 10, 2010, 2:07 pmBleh says:
How do you quantify whether or not they recoiled sufficiently? You seem to be making the assumption here that the VAST majority of Muslims that didn’t cheer 9/11, stayed in doors because they agreed with it, but were just too lazy to go out and cheer. There’s another equally (or more) plausible reason: they live in repressive countries where at least some small portion of the population cheers and shoots off guns after suicide bombings — maybe they were afraid to go out in the streets and protest.
But that is neither here nor there; we are talking about the rights of American Muslims, many of whom very clearly did speak out against terrorist attacks following 9/11. Why do we continue to ostracize loyal citizens just because of their religion?
August 10, 2010, 2:26 pmChrisTS says:
bbeard:
Affirming the First Amendment is political correctness gone wild? This is an enemy mosque?
Uh, no, it does not. It is a set of assertions: about what many Americans are willing to do, about pc wildness, and about an enemy mosque at Ground Zero. You might wish to reframe your statement as a hypothetical, but it was an assertion.
August 10, 2010, 2:45 pmDilan Esper says:
I am not going to relitigate the Iraq War (conservatives lost that argument already, and unfortunately they have the blood of over 4,000 brave American servicemembers on their hands before it was recognized that they lost it). So I will leave those comments aside.
But as for this:
There is a view being pushed in certain circles that the Judeo-Christian West is at war with Islam, and we are losing because we are too accomodating and they are remorseless.
I want to say with a lot of force that I don’t belong to any Judeo-Christian West, that the United States and Europe are for the most part secular, not “Judeo-Christian” (which is a meaningless term anyway, as Judaism and Christianity are as different from each other as Christianity and Islam), and if Christians want to have their own war with Islam they need to go somewhere else, found a theocracy, and have that war. Seriously.
If people want to have their fantasies about the afterlife and sky-fairies and all the rest, they are entitled under the First Amendment to have them. But when they start making military policy based on them, military policy that can get people killed, that’s where it needs to stop.
If people wonder why folks like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens say religion is not only flim-flam, but dangerous, this sort of thing is why. I don’t wish to be a pawn in some crazy person’s Armageddon fantasy. The people of the United States of America are not the children in the Branch Davidian compound.
This is what a strong separation of church and state is about. Let’s have the widest possible diversity of religious views. Let’s give Christians the space to be Christians and Muslims the space to be Muslims. But let’s leave the civilizational war talk out of our governance, thanks.
August 10, 2010, 2:46 pmChris Travers says:
It’s not just that it gets people killed. It’s that it tells every Hindu and Buddhist, and every Neopagan that this nation is not pluralist enough to accept them. As long as we are religiously pluralist, religious views cannot be the basis of public policy.
Note that one commenter has already tried to associate my religion with Nazism and drawn parallels to why opposition to this mosque is necessary and the mosque unprotected by the First Amendment.
In my patriotic opinion, a few deaths is nothing compared to the damage to the foundations of our great republic– a republic so many brave men and women died defending in so many wars.
August 10, 2010, 3:20 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Most of which are virtually indentured servants without benefit of passports, not to mention half the population that is not allowed to escape to the mall for a few hours, let alone to a different country.
Baghdad had (and has) music stores, liquor stores, discotheques, synagogues, churches … It’s not even a close comparison. If you steered clear of Saddam, Baghdad could have been mistaken for Algiers or Casablanca. Meanwhile Riyadh can only be mistaken for an aberration from the 17th century.
You are mistaken if you think I credit anyone in particular with that view. Most partisans have a very extreme version of their arguments in their head — it’s a good idea for moderates to distill that down to the essentials even if what is produced exists nowhere else.
IMO, the argument does have some merit — that we have become soft on our values (specifically, in my mind, the absolute and non-negotiable right of women to exactly identical societal standards) in our accommodation.
August 10, 2010, 4:04 pmDilan Esper says:
IMO, the argument does have some merit — that we have become soft on our values (specifically, in my mind, the absolute and non-negotiable right of women to exactly identical societal standards) in our accommodation.
I’m a big believer in Employment Division vs. Smith (Scalia’s finest hour) and I would not have any problem with enforcing general rules against gender discrimination against religious and non-religious people, rather than accommodating.
It’s worth noting that many of Islam’s critics in this country aren’t exactly any great shakes in the gender discrimination area, of course.
August 10, 2010, 4:13 pmRandy says:
Dilan: “It’s worth noting that many of Islam’s critics in this country aren’t exactly any great shakes in the gender discrimination area, of course.”
Indeed. There is a truism that if you go far enough to the right, you meet up with the left. I believe that’s true for religions as well — the difference between Islam and many of it’s critics here in the US is that Islam has succeeded in its creation of a society in its image, and here in the US those critics can only hope for that same success here. As for substance, the worst of the religionists share remarkably similar views to the worst of the islamists.
August 10, 2010, 4:57 pmChris Travers says:
Also in Iraq, even under Saddam, public opinion regarding women’s participation and roles in professional and scientific fields has hardly been in dispute.
August 10, 2010, 5:57 pmChris Travers says:
Can you define identical societal standards?
Is it a violation of this right to encourage women to stay home and raise kids? Should we ban the Mormon Church? Or do the bonds of society, when orchestrated entirely through the world of ideas and speech, get a free pass under the First Amendment?
I’d like to think that the First Amendment is supreme in this case but I suppose YMMV….
August 10, 2010, 6:00 pmChris Travers says:
You don’t think the Hamdi dissent was his finest hour?
August 10, 2010, 6:02 pmDilan Esper says:
The Hamdi concurrence/dissent was good and correct, though bear in mind, it relies on a sharp citizen/non-citizen distinction that holds that we can basically do anything we want to a prisoner of war who is not a citizen. So I have to qualify my praise of it.
Smith is really good because it basically takes a principled position where one is necessary and consistent with the Constitutional text and history, and actually resolves what would otherwise be a knotty problem, which is that once you start granting judicial religious exemptions from generally applicable laws, there’s basically no limiting principle other than whatever a judge thinks is sufficiently compelling. It is also egalitarian– we all have the right to worship or not worship how we wish, but we all have to live according to the same rules.
(By the way, I would say that the other really great Scalia decision is Apprendi, in the sense that he shepherded that all the way from a dissent to a working court majority.)
August 10, 2010, 6:42 pmOrenWithAnE says:
I didn’t mean accommodation in the legal sense, I meant in the cultural sense of failing to condemn in the strongest terms the near-slavery conditions experience by women in, say, Saudi Arabia.
I thought the term was rather self-defining. Society ought to treat
You mistake legal protection for normative approval. The necessary corollary of anyone being able to preach whatever they want is that I am free to believe, and express the belief, that their teachings are abominable.
The 1A requires the government to remain neutral in the sphere of ideas, it does not neuter Western society from forcefully expressing the core values (freedom of speech surely among them) that we believe in.
August 10, 2010, 6:57 pmOrenWithAnE says:
PS. Voting Kyllo.
August 10, 2010, 6:57 pmChris Travers says:
Ok. But here’s the issue. When we say “identical societal standards” that sounds a lot broader than just state action, and even a lot broader than state action plus private commercial discrimination. For example, if women who are sexually promiscuous are treated differently than men who are (and it is true even women frequently make this distinction) then that’s a non-trivial difference in societal standards.
I think that in the end it is true that we have to compromise on this because if we fail to, then it means imposing, not just legal or commercial equality, but social equality in a way our Constitution is not supposed to reach.
I think societies forcefully express things all the time. Of course what society forcefully expresses and what our ideals are may be quite different.
Or for fun, read a variety of opinions here.
How well is society forcefully expressing this concept, I have to wonder?
August 10, 2010, 7:12 pmChris Travers says:
What do you think of the careful way the court differentiated Smith from Yoder v. Wisconsin?
August 10, 2010, 7:13 pmClayton says:
Interesting comments and a correct read on the law but as anyone who pracitces land use in states such as CA we know that what should be true and what is true are to differnet things. I have made a pretty good living taking on cities who regualarly go out of their way to try to prevent houses of worship from being developed. (It is easier to site a muslim or jewish facility than it is a christian.)
August 10, 2010, 7:39 pmHoward says:
Those protesting the Ground-Zero Mosque have been defeated by the radical Islamic terrorists. They are submitting that the US is so feeble and weak that we cannot accept the horror of having our feelings hurt. This is ChickenHawk version 2.0.
August 10, 2010, 7:53 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Oren, women in Saudi Arabia have a rough time but they are not subject to rape by the government just because a family member ticked somebody off.
Remember this charming story? And this.
And let’s not forget this. My daughter met a man whose family got asylum here after that – I wrote about that here on the day Hussein was executed.
August 10, 2010, 8:27 pmThe Ground Zero Mosque and The Obama Administration | RedState says:
[...] and calling for a halt to it, I’ve been a bit agnostic on the second point myself. There are constitutional and statutory restrictions on what the government can or should do to interfere with the building [...]
August 10, 2010, 8:41 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
“And many Americans are willing to take a stand against the kind of PC-gone-wild that embraces an enemy mosque at Ground Zero.” That statement includes a hypothetical. Whether or not Imam Rauf’s mosque qualifies as an “enemy mosque” is not entered into evidence. However, were it an enemy mosque, many Americans are willing to take a stand against it, even as some Americans are willing to defend it on the basis of it being a house of worship.
Those contortions are worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Bottom line: you called the Cordoba Project an “enemy mosque” — no hypothetical about it. There’s been zero substantive evidence produced that this is anything other than an ordinary mosque — which means you think all Muslims are The Enemy.
And no, I doubt normally care for flippant accusations of racism. But in this case, if the shoe fits, wear it.
August 10, 2010, 8:58 pmOrenWithAnE says:
No, they are subject to rape by their ‘husbands’ every day for their entire lives. A far worse arrangement, I would have thought, by any standard.
Again, not that Saddam wasn’t a monster, only that his tyranny did not impact nearly as many as the Saudi’s antedeluvian conception of gender roles do. It’s a matter of scale. For a few thousand of Saddam’s enemies to be raped and tortured is a heinous crime. For millions of Saudi women to be the legal equivalent of chattel is just far worse still.
August 10, 2010, 9:36 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Oren, do you think all women in SA don’t love their husbands? Do you think no Saudi husbands love their wives?
And if you think that the husband’s right to rape his wife is strictly a Saudi construct, I invite you to peruse the OP and the comments here.
August 10, 2010, 9:43 pmOrenWithAnE says:
You have an oddly expansive view of what constitutes ‘society’, to say the least. I was not talking about individual attitudes.
August 10, 2010, 9:46 pmOrenWithAnE says:
(1) No person is a ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ unless they come to the arrangement of marriage by mutual consent. Arranged marriages are a disgrace to the institution.
(2) Even if they did, it would still be rape unless that woman is free to pick up her bags and walk out the door (unescorted by a male relative).
A woman that lacks the basic right of self-determination to live an independent life (or even not to marry at all if it doesn’t fancy it) is incapable of consenting to anything. There is no freedom to say ‘yes’ without the freedom to say ‘no’.
[ FWIW, I think Saudi men probably do love their wives. They just don't conceive of them as full persons worthy of inclusion into the categorical imperative. Those two are not contradictory in the slightest. ]
I never said it was. My only point originally is that it remains far better to live in Saddam’s Iraq and face the insignificant (but nonzero) risk of running afoul of his goons and being horrifically tortured and/or executed than to live in Saudi Arabia where you run the absolute certainty of being smothered to death by a pervasive and insidious tyranny that infects every possible aspect of life.
And that’s as a man! As a woman, you wouldn’t even be a person in Saudi Arabia.
August 10, 2010, 9:53 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Arranged marriages can still be consensual, Oren. The way that works is that parents make an agreement, but the potential couple still get to find out about each other, probably meet each other, and each has a veto vote. That happens in this country, in immigrant families, all the time.
I wouldn’t want to be a woman in SA. There’s plenty to be horrified about there – if a woman is raped, for instance, they’ll find a way to punish her as well as her rapists. Can’t just punish the man, she’s got to be at fault too. But I don’t think pre-liberation Iraq was any better. So we’re just not going to agree here.
August 10, 2010, 10:03 pmleo marvin says:
“Landing gear?” “Jetliners?” You don’t really believe that, do you? Now if you said “thermite,” that would be another story.
August 10, 2010, 10:40 pmbbbeard says:
Well, I’m a Buddhist. So far I haven’t had any Christians try to kill me because I am not a Christian. As far as I know I haven’t had any Hindus, Druids, Pagans, Wiccans, or even atheists try to kill me because I don’t share their faith. Radical Muslims, however, have been killing people, not just Americans, for not being Muslim for my entire adult life (in my case going on 3+ decades). And their mosques and civic centers have played a role in fomenting this violence. So with the peculiar, objective serenity granted me as a Buddhist, I can understand why people think mosques in general, and mosques run by Imams who harbor anti-Western sentiment in particular, deserve extra scrutiny. In the end I expect the Cordova Center, or whatever name they settle upon, will be built on the current site. And I expect it will generate some bad karma.
And no, the objections to the Ground Zero mosque do not make me feel that America is any less accepting of religious pluralism. Now, to whatever extent Imam Rauf is successful in implementing sharia law in this country, that will be a threat to religious pluralism.
August 10, 2010, 11:27 pmSarcastro says:
I’m with bbeard. Pretend all Muslims are radical, that way you won’t be disappointed!
August 10, 2010, 11:41 pmbbbeard says:
What is it with you and the all-or-nothing Enemy list? I certainly haven’t said all Muslims are the Enemy — nor have I hinted at it, nor have I slyly implied it. On the other hand, I did write to you previously
So how you arrive at this straw man about some kind of total war against Islam is beyond me.
Regarding evidence that raises suspicions about the Cordoba Project, this topic has been addressed multiple times, with multiple links, already in this thread. It’s a long thread, so I don’t blame you for skipping the volumes of tiresome name-calling. Just do a page search for “Rauf” and “Imam” and you should catch most of these.
Now, you may not find the evidence dispositive, you may not even find it mildly persuasive, but then, you and I are bigots, remember? The point is that the controversy surrounding Imam Rauf and his shadowy funding sources is not imaginary.
August 10, 2010, 11:54 pmbbbeard says:
Oh, right. Can you supply the YouTube link for the video where Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell urge the faithful to strap on the suicide vests and bomb a Muslim wedding party?
August 10, 2010, 11:58 pmbbbeard says:
I realize at this late hour that I’ve written “the Cordova Center” several times because I was tired of writing “the Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero” or variants thereof. I realize it should be “the Cordoba Center” — I can only plead that my previous home was in Cordova and it just comes off the keyboard that way. Sorry if I offended anyone.
August 11, 2010, 12:01 amDilan Esper says:
What do you think of the careful way the court differentiated Smith from Yoder v. Wisconsin?
I think Yoder is confined to its facts, and the only reason it isn’t confined to the dustbin where it belongs is because Scalia didn’t have five votes.
August 11, 2010, 12:32 amDilan Esper says:
Oren, women in Saudi Arabia have a rough time but they are not subject to rape by the government just because a family member ticked somebody off.
Without in any way defending Saddam’s Iraq, we have no way of knowing the rape rate in extremely patriarchal countries like Saudi Arabia, but the people I know in the feminist movement believe it to be astronomically high, far higher than Saddam’s Iraq.
August 11, 2010, 12:36 amReaderY says:
I would emphasize the Religion Clauses and particularly the Free Exercise Clause here, for a very simple reason: this is one of the increasingly rare occassions where there can be absolutely no doubt that this very sort of situation is what the Framers specifically had in mind when they adopted these clauses. For many other matters we have wiggle room and we can blame the judge if we don’t like the outcome. Here, there can be no question what the constitution requires.
It should be noted that societies never persecute good, enlightened religions that are friends of the country. It is always the bad religions — those primitive, Papist Catholics, the dirty, rigidly superstitious, Christ-killing Jews, those horrible animal-sacrificing Santarians. It is always the religions whose beliefs are the patently false and superstitious ones, the ones who insist on practicing their rediculous and shameful rituals openly and shoving them in decent people’s faces, the ones who don’t even have enough common sense to get into the closet when the good guys come into town — it’s those religions that are the ones that get persecuted.
The good religions never do. Only the ones that deserve it get perscuted. The ones that all us decent people know are enemies of decent society, subversive of good order, and have more than a whiff of a treasonous smell on them to boot.
August 11, 2010, 12:42 amDilan Esper says:
By the way, more generally, Laura, you are simply spouting Republican talking points throughout this thread in Iraq. Among honest, non-hackish people, everyone knows that the Iraq War was sold by insinuating (notice that particular word I used– not stating, insinuating) a connection between Saddam and the terrorists who brought down the WTC. And among honest, non-hackish people, everyone knows that this was the intentional strategy of the Bush Administration. You take this innocent, “lil’ ol’ me”, “I never heard of such a thing, can you prove it on google?” which makes you either stupid or dishonest. And since you aren’t stupid, conservative hack is the only possibility.
And now you are doing the same thing on this Iraq/Saudi Arabia thing. Everyone knows Saddam was a brutal dictator, but every honest, non-hackish person knows he wasn’t even the worst person in the region, let alone the second coming of Hitler. Rape rooms are a bad thing– sexual assault is also an extremely common abuse of power in every dictatorship. (You might read Mario Vargas Llosa’s excellent “La Fiesta del Chivo” if you doubt this.) And Saudi Arabia’s oppression is well-documented– you must be aware of the difference between a reasonably cosmopolitan society living under a brutal dictatorship (Saddam’s Iraq) and a society where just about any outward expression of culture or creativity is banned and women are for the most part confined to the home as the property of their fathers and husbands (Saudi Arabia).
Again, you aren’t stupid. So you need to stop pretending that the sky is green just because that is the Republican Party / conservative line.
August 11, 2010, 12:48 amFloridan says:
bbbeard: “Now, to whatever extent Imam Rauf is successful in implementing sharia law in this country, that will be a threat to religious pluralism.”
Extent = zero.
August 11, 2010, 9:51 amChris Travers says:
I disagree. I thought that what the Smith court said in differentiating from Yoder is that a religious objection isn’t enough to gain such an exemption, and that instead that Yoder lives on because of a sort of hybrid-rights theory, namely that parental autonomy plus religious freedom provides a stronger basis than either alone. This would allow Amish, for example, an exemption from various laws relating to public education, but wouldn’t give them an exemption regarding, for example, minimum speed limits on freeways.
Personally I think that is exactly right.
Parental autonomy plus religious freedom would then also provide a basis for a Constitutional exception to mandatory vaccination laws, and so forth as well.
I’d also note that in Lakumi Babalu v. Hileah (decided after Smith), Scalia’s concurrance stated that the law would be Unconstitutional EVEN IF it wasn’t intended to target religious practice.
August 11, 2010, 10:53 amChris Travers says:
ESPECIALLY the Sufis. Next we’ll go to war with the Druze because they are at least arguably Muslim too…..
August 11, 2010, 11:05 amChris Travers says:
I think there are a couple things that have to be addressed in this post. The first is that there are a lot of different kinds of Muslims and they have different ideas on how Islam should be spread. The second thing is that under any sort of Muslim thought it’s not enough that someone be non-Muslim to warrant death. Apostasy is specifically a crime of leaving Islam, and irredentism draws lines at areas formerly under control of Islamic nations. So these conflicts are fairly narrow. Moreover in places like Indonesia, India, and Europe, punishing apostasy by death is no longer the norm.
A larger question I think needs to be looked at: whether such integration generally works or not. In general, when we look at India and Indonesia, most of the country is happy with the level of integration. This includes most Muslims. So if integration is possible than our duty, in keeping with our identity as the land of the free and the home of the brave is to treat Muslims as the equals of Christians and extend full Constitutional protections to them.
I’ve argued that a major part of some of the conflicts in Europe, and in particular the Jyllands-Posten cartoon riots is that Europe allows at least some restrictions on hate speech but tends to apply these in narrow categories that leave some groups (Jews) better protected than other groups (Muslims), and that because we don’t tolerate such laws here, we haven’t had the same problems.
Moreover, suppose we accept arguendo that this mosque will be used to plot terrorist plots. I think even then it is STILL less damaging to our nation to allow it to be built than to offend the basic principles of equal protection and free exercise which our nation was founded on.
August 11, 2010, 11:24 amOrenWithAnE says:
I know exactly what the rate of rape in Saudi Arabia is — it’s 100%.
Without the freedom to walk away from a marriage, a woman is fundamentally incapable of consenting to anything. It’s tautological. Without the power to say ‘no’, you simply cannot be said to have willingly said ‘yes’. A woman in Saudi Arabia cannot leave her husband. Hell, she cannot even leave the house unescorted. This isn’t even close.
This has nothing to do with Saudi Arabia and you know it.
Which seems to me objectively false in every sense. Women in pre-lib Iraq could walk down the street unescorted by a male relative. QED.
August 11, 2010, 11:51 amJohn Pack Lambert says:
I think the general arguments for the most are strong. The landmark claims about “the landing gear fell through the roof” all seem contrived and pre-textual because no one came up with them until the Cordoba Initiative proposed a Muslim Community Center on the site.
The suggestions of immenent domain actions also fail because the Supreme Court clearly said that pretextual takings, where the intent is not to benefit the public at large are not allowed.
The Federal government probably could take this building and turn it into part of the September 11th memorial, but since it was neither an intended target or a major symbol of destruction, I doubt anyone would see the logic of that in the long run.
Beyond this, at least to me September 11th is about people dieing, not buildings being destroyed? Did anyone die in the Burlington Coat Factory warehouse? If the answer is no, which I suspect is the case, than making it part of the designated site would be an insult to all those who died in the disaster.
I wonder if anyone has done a study to see if there is a corelation between being family of NYPD or NYFD and opposing this mosque? Also, is it possible some of the opposition comes from those in neighborhoods with lots of people in those organizations? I seem to recall that Staten Island along with certain sections of Brooklyn has some of the highest concentrations of police and fire department employees in the world. This might be part of the reason Staten Island has such heavy opposition to this plan.
The claims that New York City is particularly unfriendly to religious buildings also do not hold up. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the Mormon Church) in the first five years of this century managed to build 4 buildings on Manhattan. They also built buildings in the Bronx and Queens and Brooklyn. None of these buildings were held up by opposition from neighborhood groups, which is more than we can say for the Mormon Church building plans in Brookline, Massachusetts; West Linn, Oregon; Suburban Harrisburg or Detroit, Michigan.
The Manhattan Mormon Temple is even more instructive. Starting in 1995 the Mormon Church tried to build a temple in White Plains, New York. At some point an actual site was chosen, which was in Harrison, New York. I am not sure if the site was chosen in 1995 or slightly later. The city put all sorts of hurdles in the way. Eventually in a rare move the Church brought a suit against the city for obstructing progress on the building. They lost the suit.
The buildings of the Mormon Temple in Manhattan was the solution to this problem in some ways. The Manhattan Temple was built in a year or less, with no city opposition. Of course, the fact that it involved taking an existing LDS Church building and upgrading part of it into a temple, especially since the Church owns an ajacent skyscraper of about 20 stories, so it is the main neighbor, helped expedite the process. It is also true that the statue of the angel Moroni and spire were added after the building was dedicated. In a lot of ways the key to this project was that the other LDS Chapels in Manhattan had been built making it so there were not 8 seperate wards (congregations) meeting at the building that was partly turned into the temple. There would not have been space for the building of the temple if various congregations had not been moved off to other locations throughout the city.
Still, this shows that New York City has a record of being in general a fairly friendly place to religious organizations using the land.
There are about 100 mosques in New York City. There is a mosque currently that meets about 3 blocks from the WTC site. Of course, it is a small affiar, taking up part of a story and has no connection with the Cordoba House initiative.
The Gettysburg analogy is not so off base because of the “real battle” issue, but because Gettysburg is known because of the battle. New York City, from Broadway to Wall Street to Madison Avenue to 5th Avenue to Ellis Island to the United Nations Building was a major center of culture and other things long before September 11th.
Even th Skokie analogy involves false positives. The sufi group that wants to build Cordoba House does not idolize Osama bin Laden. The Neo-Nazis in the Skokie march did idolize Adolph Hitler.
On the Carmelite nun issue, the attempts to blame Auschwitz on the Polish Catholics are sick. The supposed picture of Pius XII getting saluted on visiting Hitler that appeared on the cover of one of the screeds against Eugenio Pacelli is actually of Wimar Republic guards saluting Archbishop Pacelli on his going to the inaguration of Hindenberg as president.
There were about as many Catholics as Jews killed by the Nazis in Poland. In fact a lot of the “Jews” the Nazis killed in Poland were actually Catholics. Edith Stein is the most famous, since she has been made a Catholic Saint, but there were Catholic Churches in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis deliberately tried to slaughter most Roman Catholic priests who were Polish.
Also, the slaughter of many Gypsies at Auschwitz is being ignored.
The Catholic Church may at times have been anti-Jewish, but it has never been anti-semite. The actions of the Spanish inquisition were not of the Church as a whole, and stand out because of their racial character.
Anti-semitism is the hatred of Jews as a cultural, ethnic or racial group. The Catholic Church did not endorse such. Even the most denounced actions of the Bishops in Croatia of seeking to save the Catholics who were Jewish converts was clearly not an act of anti-semitism, especially not of the Nazi kind. By viewing any “Jew” as worthy of life, they repudiated the Nazi view that all Jews must be killed.
Then there is the factor of forged baptismal certificates to try to prevent the slaughter of Jews.
The main resistance to Hitler in Germany came from the Catholic Bavarian areas. The fact that Hitler was baptized a Catholic is not relevant to this discussion. The Nazi government in no way tried to promote Catholicism. The Nazis came to power with one of their chief enemies being the Catholic politiial power.
Thus, while I think the ADF is off its rocker in even speaking about the Lower Manhattan Mosque, I think it totally missed the point on the Auschwitz issue as well. The ADF is supposed to speak out on Jewish issues. Is their speach on this issue telling us that they see the World Trade Center destruction as a particularly Jewish issue? Is this because they buy into the arguments that Jews control American finance, or at least think that was the thinking of those who destroyed the building?
I am actually surprised few people have explored that question.
August 11, 2010, 12:18 pmJohn Burgess says:
Crikies! The stereotypes of Saudi Arabia are pretty breathtaking in their wrongness.
Saudi women can and do leave their homes unescorted. Some males don’t like that; some males actually do prevent it. But the majority do not.
Saudi women (with exceptions) do have the right to reject a proposed husband. Some–depending on their families–even have the ability to choose their own husbands. As for the Dworkinesque idea that all Saudi sex is rape, it fails to explain those happily married Saudi men and women who find marital sex to be just dandy.
August 11, 2010, 1:00 pmJohn Pack Lambert says:
Muslims are not all “brown”. I guess maybe such assertions were not meant seriously, but they are also seriously wrong.
There are in fact Anglo-Americans who can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower who are Muslims.
Beyond this, Arabs are white according to the US census. This may not affect how they are teated, but it is at the route of why the percentage of whites in some Detroit suburbs is so high, because 25% of the suburb is Arab.
A large percentage of Muslims in the Bronx are Albanians, some of whom are from Kosovo, and they are white by most definitions. True some would not call them white, but some would not call the Italian descended inhabitants of New York City white either, and they are probably at least a noticable portion of those who oppose the mosque.
Opposition to the mosque may be bigoted, but it is not racist. Muslims are not a race, and some of the most virulent anti-Muslim polemicists in the United States are Arab and Pakistani former Muslims.
Most Arabs in the US are not Muslims and most Muslims in the US are not Arabs. In fact I believe South Asian Muslims outnumber Arab Muslims, yet most South Asians (people from the Indian sub-continent) are not Muslims. The largest portion are Hindus, but there are many Christian, Sikh, Jain, Zoroastrian and probably even some Buddhist and athiest as well as maybe other religions South Asians in the US.
The one South Asian who is currently a governor (US born Bobby Jindal) is a Catholic, and Nikki Haley is a Methodist. A few of the candidates for congress are Hindus and as those who have followed debates about Oregon’s law banning the wearing of religious garb by public school teachers (including turbans, but only if you are a Sikh, Muslims can wear turbans because it is not a religious clothing item) know, there are many Sikhs in Oregon. Of course a good percentage of Hindus in the US are not south Asians, but American converts of descendants of American coverts.
African-American Muslims may also outnumber Arab Muslims in the US. This is even if we limit the term to people whose ancestors left Africa before 1900. If we include immigrants from Africa with the “African-American Muslims” they for sure outnumber Arabs, but the whole dynamics of the immigrants from Africa are so different than the native-born converts and their descendants that realistically they should be counted differently, not that African-American Muslims form a cohesive, ideoogically unified or in any other way distinct group. I chose my phrasing carefully because we are talking about New York City, and there more so than anywhere else in the US except maybe Metro-Miami there are large amounts of people who are African-descent immigrants from the greater Caribean (not just the Islands, but mainland countries like Panama), some of whom are Muslims and some of whom married migrants from Alabama and neighboring states, creating children who if they join Islam can not easily be pegged in any group.
Of course, intermarriage between various ethnic and racial groups in Islam does happen, so statements about the racial make-up of Islam in the United States are usually too simplistic.
Then there is Amadiyyah. Their Muslimness is regularly attacked by other Muslims. Yet they believe the Qu’ran. They accept that God can still call prophets. I guess as a Mormon I sympathize with them, seeing their views as somewhat analogous to the Mormon view of men from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson being called as prophets, epecially since certain radical right-wing elements in Christianity are as unwilling to grant Mormons the right to be Christians, despite believing the Bible and having the Book of Mormon which says “there is no other name or way whereby man can be saved, only in and through the name of Jesus Christ”.
The persecution of Amadiyyah is worse than that of Mormons at least at present. However Reynolds v US is not the worst of past anti-Mormon descisions. Mormons reject polygamy, excommunicate any who practice or preach it, and at times have used test oaths to excommunicate anyone who would not proactively denounce it. However at one point Mormons practiced polygamy as a command from God, and the anti-polygamy law adjudicated in Reynolds v US was passed specifically to punish Mormons for practicing polygamy.
Even at that, the claim that the law could be used against action but not belief was not upheld when push came to shove. In 1890 the US Supreme Court upheld the Idaho test oath. This required potential voters to affirm not only that they did not have multiple wives (only men could vote in Idaho at the time) but that they did not belong to a Church that encoraged or believed in the practice of polygamy. Such forbidding of members of a Church to vote was upheld as constitutional by the US Supreme Court. If people are going to cite Reynolds, they should also cite the Test Oath Case, and admit we have precedent for treating the religious free exercise clause of the 1st Admendment as a meaningless scrap of paper.
Personally I think some deference to religious practice is owed by the government. I think Employment Division v Smith was a misguided ruling. I feel the government should only be allowed to infringe on religious free exercise when it has a compelling reason to do so. I do not think that micro-managing decisions on raising children is such an interest, and I think that as long as parents feel they are doing what is best for their child, and in no real way are inflicting harm on the child, they should not be prosecuted.
The last sentance refers to believers in faith healing. I believe both faith and the power of the priesthood can heal, but we should also seek competent medical advice and help. That said, I also believe that those who believe in faith healing have a right not to go to the doctor, and I really do not see why the state should force people to seek medical services from doctors. I guess at heart I think a lot of negligence claims against parents are bunk. If the parent does not feed a child that is one thing, but failure to seek medical aid as negligence that can lead to murder charges is just extreme. It benefits no one, except the beuracrats who get more power.
The state should focus on cases of real, proactive abuse and not persecute those who just have a different cultural view of medicine. What next, will we prosecute users of forms of non-traditional medicine who have children die, or is it only when a practice is clearly “religious” and not “cultural” that we send people to jail for it? If the later is that case, than the 1st Admendment has been turned upside down and is now used to punish religion exclusively. This is actually the interpretation that it has had in some sense since Justice Black added “the wall of seperation between Church and state” to our legal lexicon. Schools can and do proactively seek to supress religious expression in ways they would never dare attack merely cultural expressions.
Back to Amadiyyah. They are legally defined as non-Muslims in Pakistan, and legally restricted in Indonesia. Yet in the US they actively go around promoting Islam as a religion of peace. Of course, their version of Islam rejects jihad of the sword, claims Muhammad said “the pen of the scholar is of more worth than the blood of the martyr” and really is a form of Islam adapted to a multi-cultural society and to expansion in a free market-place of ideas as we strive to have in the US.
Of course, the Cordoba House is the project of Sufis, and Sufism is also about spreading Islam by the teaching the word. Sufism is as complexed and varied as Islam itself, with both Sunni and Shi’ah orders. While some Sufi orders are as tight knit as Catholic orders, the fact that they function in the decentralized Islam, which in general has less leadership or clear order of power than even non-denominational Christianity means that the analogy is weak.
I would hope that the Cordoba House discussion would be used as a time to inform people more about the real complexity of Islam. Sadly it so far has been used as a way to add to one-dimensional understandings of the religion. It probably does not help that sound bites have grown to a new extreme with the advent of twitter.
August 11, 2010, 1:15 pmJohn Pack Lambert says:
This article http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11495&Itemid=9 from the Baptist Standard highlights the problem with objections against Rauf.
He apparently has worked with the FBI to help it in out reach efforts to the Muslim community. The builders of the community center claim to have recieved no foriegn donations.
The whole objection to the Mosque seems to be misguided bigotry. The assumption that Islam is a homogenous enemy of progress is just laughable.
August 11, 2010, 1:44 pmDilan Esper says:
I disagree. I thought that what the Smith court said in differentiating from Yoder is that a religious objection isn’t enough to gain such an exemption, and that instead that Yoder lives on because of a sort of hybrid-rights theory, namely that parental autonomy plus religious freedom provides a stronger basis than either alone.
That is definitely what Smith says, but I doubt you will see any new “parental autonomy” extensions to Yoder. Yoder is an orphan case, basically. (It should be overturned, but never will be.)
I’d also note that in Lakumi Babalu v. Hileah (decided after Smith), Scalia’s concurrance stated that the law would be Unconstitutional EVEN IF it wasn’t intended to target religious practice.
The issue in Lakumi isn’t so much that the ban on animal sacrifice is “intended” to target a religious practice but that it bars practices that, in general, are only performed in the name of religion.
For instance, it’s perfectly constitutional for a state to become a “dry” state and ban alcohol possession and consumption, with no exemption for communion. But if a state barred the consumption of alcohol in the company of crackers and the enunciation of the word “body”, it wouldn’t matter if there was not a shred of specific evidence of an “intent” to target Catholicism– the law would still be unconstitutional.
August 11, 2010, 2:04 pmDilan Esper says:
Saudi women can and do leave their homes unescorted. Some males don’t like that; some males actually do prevent it. But the majority do not. Saudi women (with exceptions) do have the right to reject a proposed husband. Some–depending on their families–even have the ability to choose their own husbands. As for the Dworkinesque idea that all Saudi sex is rape, it fails to explain those happily married Saudi men and women who find marital sex to be just dandy.
Saudi women (1) can’t drive, and (2) can be harassed by the religious police if they are in any public place either unveiled or with a male who is not a relative or a spouse. Further, the Saudi government’s control of the culture is so oppressive that there are few activities for women (especially non-rich ones) to engage in in public anyway.
I didn’t take the position that all Saudi sex is rape. But I do believe, based on feminists who have done research on Saudi Arabia, that the actual rape rate there is extremely high, including political rapes, stranger rapes, rapes by persons with apparent or actual authority, prison rape, date rape, rapes of prostitutes, and spousal rape.
Bottom line, Saudi Arabia is one of the worst places on earth to be a woman.
August 11, 2010, 2:08 pmChris Travers says:
I don’t think it should be. If religious/cultural pluralism means anything in this country, the Amish have a right to their ways.
The law in question banned a lot more than that. For example, it banned possession of animals intended for food consumption not by licensed establishments. Yet Scalia said it wasn’t even necessary to review that provision for its intention and that it was unconstitutional.
August 11, 2010, 4:59 pmleo marvin says:
About ten weeks before the 2004 presidential election, 70% of Americans still perceived the Bush administration to be saying Saddam gave substantial support to al-Qaeda (43%) or was directly involved in 9/11 (27%). And 80% perceived the administration to be saying that immediately before the war, Iraq had WMD’s or a major WMD program. Coincidentally, 74% of Americans, including 58% percent of Bush supporters, said if Sadaam didn’t give substantial support to al-Qaeda and didn’t have WMD’s, we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq.
Unless one implausibly thinks the Bush administration was unaware of those perceptions, then at minimum it allowed most Americans to believe it was making claims that (1) it knew to be false, (2) about half of Americans believed to be true, and (3) if known to be untrue, the overwhelming majority of Americans would have believed the war unjustified. Given the closeness of the Presidential election, it’s fair to say the administration’s knowing deception, whether by commission or omission, is what elected Bush for a second term.
August 11, 2010, 6:34 pmJohn Burgess says:
1) Only partially true. Saudi women living and working outside the cities do drive and have been driving for over 50 years. Saudi women’s driving is very much an issue of active debate. I’d put support for their driving at about 40% of the population, including men who are tired of having to leave work to ferry their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters around. Saudi media makes a point of favorably highlighting incidents where Saudi women drive their husbands or fathers to hospitals to save their lives, even in the cities. The highest levels of Saudi government acknowledge that there’s no religious prohibition on women’s driving, but that it’s a social issue that society has to resolve. They’re working on it.
2) Saudi men are perhaps even more harassed by the religious police than are women. Single Saudi men (alone or in groups) can’t go into shopping malls, can’t hang around in restaurants or bars or cinemas, of course.
There’s no question that Saudi society is repressive and that the repression is often cloaked in religious admonition. Saudis do bitch and do rebel, within narrow channels. The smarter ones know how to do it without going so far as to require governmental reaction.
Some push it even further, as Al-Shams tabloid newspaper which did, in fact, republish some of the Danish cartoons. The result of that was the editor’s being fired (but picked up by another paper) and the paper’s being suspended from publication for six weeks. Other journalists push the barriers as well, often to the point of receiving death threats from offended members of the public, not government.
August 11, 2010, 7:26 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
This, from you?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
August 11, 2010, 7:29 pmOrenWithAnE says:
A masterful defense! We allow SOME Saudi women a right so fundamental that it scarcely needs mention as a basic trait of enlightened society.
(1) You are new here and obviously have never interacted with em or you would know that I have no truck with Dworkin.
(2) To form a marriage, a woman must willingly give herself to a man, and likewise the man must willingly give himself to a woman. When Saudi society grants each woman this basic autonomy (and the right to dissolve a marriage when it no longer suits her) then I will consider it a marriage. Until then it is a (mild, perhaps in practice) exercise of unconscionable tyranny.
(3) I continue to note that I do not find any of this to be the product of malice.
August 11, 2010, 9:05 pmJohn Burgess says:
I guess if nine years is new, I’m new.
Saudi Arabia hardly has the sole proprietorship on arranged marriages. Saudi women face the same lack of choice as Saudi men, in exactly the same way that many Indian or Thai or Japanese marriages limit choice. Arranged marriages aren’t all that distantly past in American or W. European culture, for that matter. Certainly not modern, but not bizarrely archaic, either. Even now, some American parents successfully play a controlling role over whom their cupcakes can marry.
Saudi women do, in fact, have the right to petition for a divorce [cite, cite, cite]. It’s harder for them than for men, but not impossible.
August 11, 2010, 10:31 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Pointing at the manifest evil of non-consensual marriage in India, or in Europe of centuries past, does not excuse it in Saudi Arabia. It was wrong then, it’s wrong now, it’s wrong there, it would be wrong anywhere else.
Baghdad 2002 offered women the choice of a life, a career, a place in the workforce, government, academia and culture that women in SA do not have today. If you would seriously prefer to live a women in SA2010 than Baghdad2002, be my guest — I think it’s a fool’s choice.
August 11, 2010, 11:15 pmChris Travers says:
With due respect, there are major problems with this comparison and the blanket condemnation of arranged marriage generally.
Let’s start by getting some facts straight. India has traditionally recognized multiple types of marriages which range from bridal kidnapping (which was seen as valid IF the bride consented– who wouldn’t want to be swept away by a handsome warrior? But again consent was seen as a precondition to such recognition.) to elopement, to arranged marriage. Arranged marriage has been traditionally seen as the highest form of marriage but to say there is no choice is plainly disingenuous.
The same thing held true with Europe. Polemo discussed watching a wedding in Rome and predicting that the bride would be kidnapped. His estute observations were that of watching the bride who seemed unusually anxious as if wondering, basically “where is he? he should be here by now?” John Winkler thus suggests that bridal kidnapping was a face-saving alternative to elopement in Rome (see his essay “The Constraints of Eros” in “Magika Hiera,” edited by Christopher Faraone and Dirk Obbink– please don’t ask why I have this book on my desk as this topic comes up…..)
Similarly when you look at most of the world today, there’s a formal expectation that one will not get married without one’s parents approving. After all, the parents will probably come and live with you at some point….. However, this leads to interesting power games where premarital sex and even pregnancy become ways of applying pressure to get parents to consent.
These things are complex and one cannot look at them in a vacuum. Instead of blanket pronouncements, it’s important to look at specifics.
August 12, 2010, 1:12 pmRandy says:
It’s times like these that I think John Lennon was right. “Imagine” a world where there is no religion — it’s easy if you try.
August 12, 2010, 1:43 pmChris Travers says:
On re-reading this I may have come across a little more forcefully than I intended on my post immediately previous.
My main point is that you can’t look at arranged marriage and assume this means no choice. It’s also important to look at how the extended family unit interacts overall, such as providing care for parents in law, etc.
My view is that from what I have seen (and I would be happy to be proven wrong), Saudi Arabia in particular does not allow for such choice, and that this is very, very different from the situation even in traditional India or earlier in Europe.
It’s like saying “bridal kidnapping is wrong everywhere including medieval Ireland” without looking at the context in which medieval Ireland recognized it (widow whose husband is slain is presumed to marry her husband’s killer if he captures her and brings her back with him unless or until she attempts to escape). It’s possible instead to see this as a support structure for women whose husbands might be killed in a war rather than a simple enforcement of property rights over women.
August 12, 2010, 1:45 pmDilan Esper says:
I don’t think it should be. If religious/cultural pluralism means anything in this country, the Amish have a right to their ways.
Free exercise is an individual right, not a community right. That’s very important. It is NOT religious pluralism to have separatist religious enclaves whose leaders control their populations and force them to segregate from the rest of society, such conduct should not be considered protected by the free exercise clause. Reynolds is right and Yoder is wrong.
August 12, 2010, 2:26 pmDilan Esper says:
This, from you? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Read Leo Marvin’s post directly above yours, Laura. He explicates it pretty well.
August 12, 2010, 2:29 pmDilan Esper says:
Only partially true. Saudi women living and working outside the cities do drive and have been driving for over 50 years.
That’s interesting, because Maureen Dowd was just in Saudi Arabia to write a magazine piece, was allowed to go all over the place, and the only women who were driving were in rich enclaves that were inaccessible to most Saudi citizens and visitors.
I’d put support for their driving at about 40% of the population, including men who are tired of having to leave work to ferry their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters around.
This is always the excuse for oppression. If there’s even one Saudi woman whose life is made more difficult because of the laws against driving, her interests in fundamental gender equality outweigh the opinions of 60 percent of the population.
Saudi men are perhaps even more harassed by the religious police than are women.
As Amanda Marcotte likes to say, the patriarchy is bad for men too.
August 12, 2010, 2:33 pmChris Travers says:
Disagree in two areas. Free exercise IS an individual right but it also has a communal component, namely that it requires government to stay neutral in the areas of religious ideas, and these individuals in fact form communities which are protected by government neutrality. It may not be communally actionable but to say there isn’t a communal component strikes me as incorrect.
But here we have what Smith referred to as a hybrid right, namely a combination of free exercise and another constitutional right (in this case parental autonomy). The argument is simple, namely that free exercise enhances our other Constitutional rights esp. as they are connected deeply to ways of life.
I think Yoder is correct and I’m glad that our Constitution allows this freedom.
August 12, 2010, 3:07 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
Now, you may not find the evidence dispositive, you may not even find it mildly persuasive, but then, you and I are bigots, remember?
No, sir. You are a bigot, and I am not.
I support the values of the Constitution, and allowing Muslims to worship like any other religious group. You do not.
I support the ability of any person, regardless of religion, to enter into lawful contracts to purchase property. You do not.
As for the supposed radicalism of Imam Rauf, so far as I can tell only two spurious pieces of “evidence” have been presented. First, he doesn’t want to weigh in on whether Hamas is a terrorist organization. Second, a site called Pajamas Media is whining that Imam Rauf’s father studied at al-Azhar as the same time as Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
On the first charge, so what? Rauf doesn’t want to wade into a political debate. Must every Irish Catholic priest explain whether the IRA was a terrorist group? Must every African-American minister explain whether the ANC was a terrorist group? Must every rabbi explain whether Meir Kahane was a terrorist?
This is politics, not theology. There is no reason to introduce Congress-style grandstanding to the pews and prayer rugs.
Oh, and then there’s also the pesky first amendment again: even if any of the above clerics were cozy with the IRA, ANC, or Kahane Chai, they’re still entitled to freedom of speech.
The bottom line: if you apply different standards to Muslim clerics than to Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish ones, that is justly the definition of a bigot.
In a free country, political litmus tests are not a valid reason to deny building permits. As to what Saudi Arabia does, I don’t give a d@mn. We’re not Saudi Arabia. Neither is Indonesia, India, Malaysia, or Egypt.
On the Pajamas Media charge, this is guilt by association.
Merely because Rauf’s father was a contemporary of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, does not mean that he knew al-Banna, or that they were friends.
And even if they were friends, that does not mean he agreed with al-Banna’s ideology.
And even if Imam Rauf’s father did sympathize with al-Banna, that does not mean his son does. Schwartzenegger pere was a Nazi. Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger is not.
Moreover, while I’m sure this degree of subtlety escapes Pajamas Media, Hassan al-Banna is not Said Qutb, the founder of the modern jihadist-salafists. The latter was much, much more radical than the former — and Qutb was largely radicalized in Colorado, not Cairo.
To say that anyone who shared some of Hassan al-Banna’s views is necessarily a follower of Qutb or bin Laden is like saying that all Marxists are by definition Leninists. You can surely disagree with Marx or al-Banna and still recognize that the comparison is fallacious.
Finally, you haven’t even begun to address the fact that Rauf is a sufi, which pretty much makes him the arch-enemy of the salafists.
August 12, 2010, 7:59 pmJohn Burgess says:
While Ms Dowd might have been permitted to go anywhere, she clearly didn’t go everywhere. Rural Saudi women do drive, primarily pickups, but everything from tractors to sedans. They take no guff from would-be religious arbiters, either.
Saudi women don’t get quite so het up about their inability to drive in the cities quite so much as their ‘supporters’ in the West. Most do not see it as a human right, important or otherwise. Some, perhaps even many do. But talk to a Saudi feminist and she’ll tell you there are far more important issues that should be dealt with first. Like setting a minimum age for women to marry; like getting a handle on domestic abuse.
August 12, 2010, 11:53 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Yeah, I should have made the distinction between arranged marriage with consent of the spouses and arranged marriage where the spouses are not given any reasonable alternatives. My fault for imprecise wording.
Indeed. And with regards to the specifics, there is a continuum ranging from the benign to the unconscionably tyrannical. Saudi Arabia falls quite clearly in the latter, whereas India seems to teeter somewhere in the middle.
I am quite leery, however, of the notion that since we cannot make blanket pronouncements with mathematical certainty that we should refrain from saying anything at all. It is no better to hold our tongue for fear of missing nuance than it is to make a hasty generalization that sweeps in more than we expect. Both are to be avoided, naturally.
Heh, and I was just done walking back my post to what I had actually intended ….
Actually, even today in India there are parents who would murder their own daughters rather than let them marry a Dalit. One hopes that this is a rare occurence (although, even if rare, repression usually requires very few actual killings to deter the vast majority of defiance).
Curiously (at least sociologically) such conduct in India is more prevalent as you move up the social ladder whereas it seems in the Arab world that wealthy women are less constrained. This is, of course, a hasty over-generalization.
And they can’t even go to the pub to have a beer an bitch about it!
[ Funny that we come around to Saudi men, when this started because I noted, uncontroversially I thought, that it would be better for me -- a male -- to live in Baghdad2002 than Riyadh2010 (or 2002 for that matter). The plight of Saudi women was secondary. ]
Like allowing women an equal opportunity to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of her own conscience.
They have a pretty long way to go.
August 13, 2010, 1:17 amChris Travers says:
Fair enough. It is true that truth is usually found faster through error than through silence.
There are a couple points here. The first is that even here in the US, I wouldn’t expect a wealthy businesswoman to marry a burger-flipper from McDonalds who comes from the trailer park. The second is that in most traditional cultures, the parents-in-law move in with either the daughter or the son when they retire, so they have a legitimate interest in the choice of marriage partner because, quite simply, they end up sharing a house with such a partner. Many other cultures stop short of literal murder, however, and simply completely disown those who marry someone sufficiently unsuitable. As I say, it’s a more complex power struggle and the parents have legitimate interests in the choice of marriage partner.
This being said, the varnas in Indian society have never been solidly hereditary. It has always been possible for someone upon demonstrating talent in another area to be recognized as moving to a different varna. Such opportunities don’t present themselves every day but there have been a number of cases of shudras generally being moved over to the brahmans and so forth. So these aren’t perfectly rigid distinctions.
Interestingly we see the vestiges of a caste system in Classical Athens and in Rome, as well as in medieval Ireland. Interestingly the Athenian and Irish systems are just about exactly as far apart from eachother as they are from the Indian one. The Irish system poses similar restrictions on cross-caste mobility as does the Indian system, i.e. one can be “recognized” as having the talent for the aes dana (Druids/smiths/poets), but this recognition is somewhat provisional for several generations.
The varna system is closely tied to Hindu cosmology generally (this is the subject of a 14-page paper I wrote last year) and is connected clearly with both a three-fold (vertical) and five-fold (horizontal) division of space for Hindu ritual purposes. It’s an old division which is also at the root of Western civilization more generally as well, and oddly shares a root with the Christian Trinity despite the numerical differences.
So between these two issues: the realities on the ground (parents coming to live with the daughter after retirement, differences in religious obligations and dietary rules, etc) and the cosmological components, I think it is reasonable for Indian parents to take all steps short of murder to prevent such marriages. I can understand the rationale behind such murders from a Hindu religious perspective (it has to do with religious obligations and the impact of this on the next life in terms of reincarnation), I think it would be better to sit back and realize that life is a learning process and that maybe if disowning the daughter is not enough, maybe the color of her heart is black (Shudra) instead of white (Brahman), red (Kshatriya), or yellow (Vaisya).
August 13, 2010, 11:55 amOrenWithAnE says:
This instance was more of a daughter of a businesswoman marrying a child of middle-management. Grad school for biotechnology isn’t flipping burgers, after all.
Which is well within their rights. I would condemn such a thing as unfeeling, naturally, but I do not begrudge an individual right to associate.
“Legitimate interest” here is a slippery thing. I have a legitimate (pecuniary!) interest that my neighbor make renovations to his house that increase its sale value. That doesn’t give me any say in whether, how or when he does so.
I think it reasonable for Indian parents to want their sons and daughters to be happy. The Gods will be happy with whatever we do since, after all, they have no choice.
I cannot.
And what color, pray tell, is the Dalit heart?
August 13, 2010, 9:59 pmLaNisha says:
Of course it’s the organizers’ perrogative to build the mosque wherever they want to, as long as they comply with local laws and zoning ordinances and such. However, I think it reflects poorly on them that they haven’t CHOSEN to build on a less contentious site now that they know how ‘sensitive’ their proposition is to locals. Note that I’m NOT suggesting that there was any malicious intent in the beginning (or now). It’s just, like.. show some graciousness, people. And they’re certainly not a ‘poor’ organization (who couldn’t possibly build in another location), as another commenter suggested might be the case.
August 17, 2010, 4:00 pmAJHE says:
Professor,
Maybe I need to brush up on my Con Law, but I think that prohibiting a mosque from being built at Ground Zero could qualify as a a reasonable “time, place, manner” restriction.
This prohibition wouldn’t be aimed at the content or viewpoint of the religion, but rather at the secondary effects of building a moque at that sight.
The Court has upheld a statute restricting strip clubs from certain locations–which clearly seemed to be a content-based restriction. I believe that the Court said that the statute was aimed at the secondary effects of strip clubs–prostitution, crime, etc.–rather than the speech’s content.
Additionally, the Court has upheld a zoning law prohibiting adult theaters from being within 1,000 feet of a residential zone. I may be wrong, but I thought the Court said that although the law was facially content-based, it was deemed content-neutral because it was motivated by a permissable content-neutral purpose: the secondary effects of having an adult theater in a residential zone.
So why would the Ground Zero Mosque situation be any different? I think there is a very strong argument (or at least a decent argument) that it wouldn’t be a content based restriction, but one aimed at the secondary effects of having the Ground Zero location (which might include hostility, among other things).
And even if my “secondary effects” analysis is totally wrong, I still don’t agree with you that the legal issue is “open and shut.” Even if the prohibition is a content/viewpoint-based restriction on speech, this doesn’t necessarily mean it is invalid. You don’t think that there is any conceivable way that the prohibition (or limitation) might be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest? Seeing that we are at war, I think it might conceivably meet strict scrutiny.
By no means am I trying to bash you, I just think that this isn’t such a “cut and dry”, “open and shut” legal issue.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
August 20, 2010, 11:29 pm