The Ground Zero Mosque is bad. Government interference in religious freedom and the rights to use private property as chosen is far worse.
The Mosque slated for an area of Manhattan immediately adjacent to Ground Zero will become reality. That was decided this week.
I don’t like knowing that a mosque will be built so close to the site of a successful attack by a group claiming Islam as their cause for committing terror. I don’t like the pain this proposed mosque appears to be causing the families of those that lost people on that terrible day.
My issue is that while I don’t like knowing that there will be a mosque near Ground Zero, I am terrified of the dangers to our nation’s future if either government (local or national) or the will of the majority (the masses) are able to prevent this expression of religion and this use of private property. We the People can not have freedom while government holds power over religion and private property rights. I choose freedom.
I still recall scenes of Muslims celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center waving pictures of a mosque built on top of the World Trade Center site. Further, I understand that Muslims view the construction of a mosque on top of a symbol of Judaism, Christianity, or freedom, as a symbol of conquest. So be it.
The Ground Zero mosque will symbolize something else to most Americans. Twenty years from now We the People will look to that mosque and judge. Were supporters genuine in their claims that the mosque would represent peace between faiths, or will the mosque represent failed promises and thus proof that Islam can not be trusted? I hope it will represent peace. I will help to make sure We the People remember if it represents anything less.
{ 2 comments }
Critical thinking? Please fact check before you write another article on the internet.
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.” – Karl Popper