Build the mosque for freedom’s sake
We currently have on our hands one of the most peculiar hot-button issues in recent memory. This heated debate over the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” is truly sweeping the nation. “Sweeping the nation” is often merely hyperbole, but even Bureau County is pretty well divided over it. The fact that it is an issue is really odd considering the facts, and I’m not sure that the people against it really have.
First of all, the nickname “Ground Zero Mosque” is intentionally and derogatorily misleading. It’s neither, by definition a mosque, nor at Ground Zero. A mosque by definition is a place of worship reserved exclusively for Muslims. The proposed “mosque” is actually a 13 story community center that will be complete with basketball courts, culinary schools and corporate meeting spaces. Of the 13 floors, 11 will be dedicated to multicultural recreation and education, and only the top two floors will house Muslim prayer spaces. The design allows for New Yorkers to explore 11 stories of possibilities without ever being subjected to a Muslim worship. Aside from not actually being a mosque, the location is not actually in the immediate Ground Zero area. The community center is not visible from the former World Trade Center, and the former World Trade Center is not visible from the community center. I’m not sure what the favorable distance from Ground Zero would be for the protesters, but the proposed location should be far enough.
Aside from the misleading nature of the way that the community center has been reported upon, this debate shouldn’t even exist in America. Have we forgotten the First Amendment to the Constitution? The very First Amendment explicitly states that the government is disallowed from interfering with the practice of religion. Our country was founded by people fleeing governments that were halting the construction of their places of worship. Suddenly we’re dead set against allowing Muslims the basic freedoms we covet?
Can we just think about how conflicting that really is to recent events in our nation’s history? We are still mired in a quagmire of a war under the cause of liberating the Iraqi people and the world from the horrors of Saddam Hussein. We invaded a sovereign nation — a nation of Muslims — not as an act of reciprocation, but as an act of principle. We sacrificed 4,000 of the men and women that were poised to be the future of this nation in the name of protecting and liberating Muslims, but they’re so inferior to us that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to them?
Rational thinking has taken a backseat to emotion and taste, and freedom and liberty have been trumped by fear. A multi-million dollar community center in lower Manhattan is no more of a terrorist training facility than a Catholic church in Lockport, New York, was for Timothy McVeigh. Just like the current Branch Davidian church is not a training ground for future cults. We have to react better to the fear mongering that is fed to us. No one reports that there has been a functioning Muslim center for worship just blocks from the World Trade Center since before there was a World Trade Center. But, that doesn’t mean that the information isn’t available.
No matter what your opinion is about Muslims, negative or otherwise, there shouldn’t be a public outcry to disallow Americans to practice religion. I cherish the rights that so many have died to provided and preserve — including currently — and I cannot in good conscience support a movement that calls for those rights to be taken away. This is America! That means we stand for something that transcends time, religion, race, creed and most definitely terrorism. Our foundations of defending the rights of the masses should not be shaken or broken by the fears of a few.
Jake Walters, formerly of Buda, now resides in Peoria. He can be reached at jakewalters@writemail.com.
