Obligatory Manhattan Mosque Post

This whole NYC mosque situation has put me and like-minded people in a strange position. Sam Harris is against it, Christopher Hitchens is for it and both are very careful not to come off as supporting Islam. President Obama stands up for American values while Newt Gingrich suggests we ought to be more like Saudi Arabia and other Islamo-fascist countries (and by proxy declared the U.S. a Christian nation.) Did the whole world lose their script?

On the one hand, Islam is a cruel, reasonless, oppressive force that keeps a good deal of the world enslaved. I’m not denying that and I’m not disagreeing with Harris’ evaluation of the religion.

But, on the other hand, I insist upon freedom of religion. I always tell people, I’m not interested in shutting down churches, mosques, scientology mind-warping centers, etc. if it means I have to do it via the law (or violence). You can never outlaw an idea. It’s not just morally wrong to do so, but it won’t work. It hasn’t, in the history of the world. Despite the inquisitions there are still atheists and Jews. Despite the best efforts of armies throughout the centuries there remains, in our world, fascist, socialist, capitailist and theocratic governments. And terrorism. You can’t kill an idea, even ones as objectionable as anti-women’s rights, fascism or Islam.

All you can do is coax someone away from religion. The best you can do is expose the religion’s harm and give people the tools to free themselves. If someone has chosen to leave a religion, if the law or the government forces them out of it, or if they’re denied the freedom to practice, say, by having their place of worship shoved out of an area: They’re not free. This sort of action would only embolden their alligance to the religion and justify the fears that America has a vendetta against Islam. That’s no way to free people.

Americans in every religion and from every culture have adjusted their beliefs and their traditions to meld with American culture. When some fear-mongers try to raise the point that “Muslims want to impose Sharia Law on us all,” they’re ignoring the history of America, that is that American ideals and values always trump threats. Not to mention they’re misrepresenting Islam and religion in general. Every religion wants to dominate the world. Why wouldn’t you, if you thought you had some secret supernatural answer to salvation or etenal life or whatever your bag is? However, they realize that’s an impractical idea, except for extremists. Abortion-doctor murderers, Islamic terrorists, people seeking legal exemptions for ‘faith-healing’ they’re the ones we need to stop, because they are the ones who use religion to treat people inhumanely to the point of immediate danger.

A church, a mosque, a cultural center, that’s not a threat. That’s not a victory for al-qaida. That’s the way America expects a religion to act. Calling Islam a cruel faith isn’t enough to deny it’s eligability to build a multi-cultural center on an old Burlington Coat Factory a few blocks from where terrorists attacked. Just like a town in which a man was murdered by bible literalists for being gay isn’t grounds for denying an application to build a church in that town.

Finally, if some terrorists want to consider this a victory, I wouldn’t mind. I know that America is in the right, by not tossing our values out the window and I don’t care how someone else percieves it. Americans know what’s right and as the bright lights of education begin to cover the Mideast, which it inevitably will, it will start to become apparent that by not allowing the events of 9/11 to compromise our values, we have beaten the terrorists.