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Obama endorses rights of Muslims to build Ground Zero community center

New York Times Article - hopefully it stays active (they don't alwa...

“This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

The president of the United States, enthusiastically upholding the very first sentence of the very first amendment of our Bill of Rights? Imagine that!

I for one give Obama a standing ovation. While I'm certainly not a fan of religion, and especially the gruesome, mutant, evil twins that are Islam and Christianity, in lieu of a secular planet, I for one am quite glad that 99.9% of the 1 billion Muslims on Earth are practicing the non-terrorism flavor of their faith. If it was a Christian fringe group that took down the World Trade Center, I'm betting the happy-fluffy-Jesus crowd would be stumbling over themselves to build a church at Ground Zero as a way of saying "Our faith is normally way more peaceful than that, really." (And as a way to prey on the grief of the victims' families, but that's another discussion).

Just like my support of freedom of speech means supporting the rights of assholes to say offensive crap, I may not like the religion but so long as they aren't actively breaking any laws, I fully support their right to practice it.

Meanwhile, a black, Democratic president with a funny, Muslim-sounding name, daring to say publicly that the Constitution applies to everyone, not just Conservative Christians?!?

Cue the Rightwing outrage in 3...2...1...

Tags: 9/11, Islam, bill, center, ground, mosque, obama, of, rights, trade, More…world, zero

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Glenn Sogge on August 14, 2010 at 12:55am

If there are tax breaks associated with this center, then, unfortunately, they can't be denied in this case without taking them away from others. (Which, by the way, I am in favor of.) But that's a much bigger, different issue that would need to be addressed differently.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 14, 2010 at 1:17am

The way I read that amendment was the government shall establish NO religion.

The way it actually reads is:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

I absolutely agree that tax breaks for religious establishments is a BS violation of the first half of that bit. But this issue is the rights/ethics of Muslims building a community center and mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero. That, I have no problem with. At least no more than the building of any mosque/church anywhere else.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on August 14, 2010 at 8:54am

Yeah, I'd love to hear someone make the argument that since theists took down the Twin Towers, no religious buildings will be allowed within a certain distance of Ground Zero. I wonder how that would go over?

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 14, 2010 at 11:25am

Reading a blog last night suggested by another A/N member, an excellent point was brought up. For the government to prohibit the building of the Mosque sets a precedent of government stepping in and telling any religious institution, including Christian, "You can't build here because we find you offensive."

Oh yeah, the Teabaggers would love it if Obama prevented, say, a Baptist church being built near the Oklahoma City federal building.

Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on August 14, 2010 at 6:35pm

Tim McVay was a Catholic so I assume that Okla. City torn down all those offending Catholic churches nearby.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on August 14, 2010 at 6:50pm

He was more anti-government then religious

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 14, 2010 at 11:34pm

McVeigh was Catholic? Oops, then I change my previous comment from Baptist to Catholic.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on August 14, 2010 at 11:06am

Where did you get the 99.9% statistic?

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on August 14, 2010 at 11:09am

I was kind of wondering about that last night, but I couldn't come up with something snarky enough.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 14, 2010 at 11:20am

Where did you get the 99.9% statistic?

Comparative religions professor. And general observation. If there are a million Muslim terrorists in the world, that's still only 1/1000th of the one billion Muslims worldwide.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on August 14, 2010 at 12:15pm

That still leaves a lot of room for other strict Islamists, and terrorist sympathizers.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on August 14, 2010 at 1:01pm

That's what I was thinking, when I first read it last night. If you're talking only terrorists, then yeah, it's less than million, probably. I include in the people who think terrorism is a good idea, though. That would put it at at least a couple million, I'm sure.