My (brief) take on the mosque controversy in New York is this:
No one is arguing against the practice of Islam in the US, or in New York. Anyone arguing that this involves a suppression of the practice of religion is missing the point.
As I see it, the World Trade Center was taken down by a fundamentalist Islamic group, in the name Islam, and that’s the key. To put a mosque in the place of (or relatively near) what was the focal point of a religious attack in the name of that religion is almost like rewarding the attackers. (And don’t you think that the Taliban, and Al-Quada would be celebrating this fact — “We took down their World Trade Center and get a mosque in its place.” Is there a better invitation to encourage further attacks?)
There are hundreds and hundreds of places in New York City to build a mosque and a cultural center. Is there any necessity to its placement near the WTC site? Of course not. And wouldn’t that placement be akin to building a booth for selling Confederate flags, and paraphenalia from the Confederacy at the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated? Doesn’t that involve the same kind of sensitivities?
That’s the key: this is an issue of sensitivity to the situation, not religious persecution. (And, for the record, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have strip clubs and vendors selling WTC merchandise around the area either, albeit for different reasons.)
