Mosques, Churches and Temples
All the fuss being stirred up by greedy demagogues (Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, etc.) and sensation-hungry media saddens me. Some folks want to expand their store-front Islamic center and build a mosque. It happens to be in the vicinity of the former World Trade Center which was horribly destroyed along with thousands of lives. Are Limbaugh and Beck and Palin Liberals? I mean, come on? They don’t respect the Constitution of the United States? They even want to change the 14th Amendment! According to them, they are the guardians of the Constitution.
But. . . .
they don’t seem interested in loyalty to the Constitution when they have a cause to exploit. I spent some time with my friend, Jeff, talking about this. He brought up some useful points.
As he sees it, these “anti-mosque” folks are appealing to the concept that Muslims, all Muslims, are waging war against the United States. Therefore, all Muslims are being tarred by one brush — the “all Muslims are Evil” brush. For the moderate Muslims who want to build the mosque to fail to go forward in their plans would be to accept the concept that all Muslims are terrorists. They must continue or give in to, and reinforce, that false belief.
It’s a bit like the black family that risked censure, and sometimes risked their lives, to be the first black people moving into a neighborhood where they owned property, wanted the good schools for their children, and panned to live out their lives. Oh, but the neighborhood had been all white for years (excluding a few hired help who went elsewhere at night).
I raised the issue of “being sensitive”. He agreed, people should be sensitive. But they cannot be compelled to be sensitive. They have the legal, constitutionally guaranteed right to build their mosque there if they own the land and do not fail to conform to zoning and health requirements. In fact, they might be less sensitive to withdraw from their plans because they could cause the people who believe that all Muslims are at ware width the U.S. to think there must be something to their notion.
On the other hand, if they fail to go ahead, they might seem to validate the far-right muckrakers-for-profit. Certainly no clear-thinking person would want such folks validated. They cause enough fuzzy thinking and hatred along with sheer meanness as it is. Let’s not encourage them in any way. ,/p>
But what about being sensitive? Let’s not lose track of that! As we talked, this came clear to me:
- You cannot require people be be ’sensitive to others’ by law.
- You should not try to bully people into being sensitive using shame, fear and guilt.
- Often what person “A” thinks would be sensitive proves to be most insensitive. I think of the “sensitive” mother who continues passing money to her drug-abusing son, thus enabling him to continue his life of self-destruction.
- Would it be “sensitive” for a large corporate giant to bild a building across from a popular ‘mom and pop’ store and thus drive them out of business? No. But it is being done all the time.
- I think we cannot expectd people to be sensitive — but we CAN expect it of ourselves, if only we can figure out what it would mean to “be sensitive” in this, that or the other situation.
- And what about Christian churches? Read on!
In many areas a church will be doing well, becoming popular and decide to build a mega-church campus, paving acres of land for parking, increasing traffic during certain hours of the day and night, increasing noise, and taking taxable land off the rolls to the detriment of the city or county or other taxing entity. Oh, they want police protection, fire protection, road maintenance, all without paying for it. But the major impact is on their neighbors who often do not want them to be granted the zoning.
But doesn’t the separation of church and state apply?
Of course it does. And churches both large and small, both of the good neighbor kind and the mega-annoying kind usually get to build where they jolly well please. And the issue of sensitivity to neighbors does not enter their thinking at all. Usually they see their neighbors as convenient fodder on which to practice their missionary tactics.
Americans want sensitivity selectively. I want you to be sensitive to me and my needs. I probably don’t give a rip about you and your needs.
We cannot leave out temples of any sort, or other religious gathering spaces. Retreat centers, headquarters buildings, reading rooms — our constitution guarantees a place for all as long as they do not foster, recruit for, or conspire to commit crimes! As we learned during the McCarthy era, people were able to legally assemble together as members of the Communist party as long as they did not conspire to do violence against the United States of America. We may not have liked it, but it seems to have worked.
So, probably the mosque will be built. Probably is should be built. And once again our American Constitution will chivvy us towards being the best nation to live in possible, in spite of ourselves.
