My take on the "Mosque" at Ground Zero

Is a Mosque (Cultural Center) at (near) Ground Zero a good idea? Let’s work with a worse-case scenario: let’s assume that Feisal Abdul Rauf, the mastermind behind the “Mosque”, wants to stick it to the West and that he wants the “Mosque” to be a symbol of Islamic supremacy (and Western weakness in letting it get built) and that he chose the name “Cordoba House” as purposely provocative. [Cordoba was the seat of the caliphate in what is now Spain after the Islamic invasion from North Africa; in Cordoba a Mosque was built over the site of a Cathedral.] Let’s assume that every Muslim that visits the “Mosque” wants the death of America and let’s assume that Islam itself, not just the brand practiced by the terrorist few, is inconsistent with Western values. [It is a well known philosophical axiom going back to at least Plato that relativism, and in this case religious relativism, is self-refuting. Not all religions can be as good as any other for the simple reason that there can be religions that claim exclusive truth.]

So what?

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York stated his case thus: “should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.” There is no question of rights, as Bloomberg’s response evidences, but there is a question of right. The Anti-Defamation League’s national director Abraham H. Foxman argued along these lines when he stated his opposition in terms of the sensitivity of the victims.

Again, so what?

We really can’t police other people’s decency. If Islam wants to be insensitive, let them, but it is also our right to point out insensitivity without being labeled bigots, a point made by Foxman. We are so blinded by our mistaken equation that tolerance = relativism that we feel strange critiquing other’s religion. I’m a Christian and I have no qualms critiquing my religion, and critiquing versions of Christianity I once held. If you look up “tolerance” in the dictionary you will find that it often pertains to views that are against one’s own.

I think the best response is to preserve toleration and if we really want to change Islam it will be by loving Muslims as ourselves. Show kindness to the Muslim that you come across in everyday situations. Your kindness might just be the key to stopping the tit-for-tat morality that fuels Islamic terrorism in the first place.