There has been no shortage of opinions about the effort to build a mosque near the site where the Twin Towers once stood.
I see a couple of issues here. First, there are legal issues. Apparently the interested parties have every legal right to build the mosque. With freedom of religion in our country, everyone has equal protection under the law, and there is no legal reason to deny the construction.
The other issue I see is one of philosophy. Members of this religion have repeatedly stated that they want to destroy our country. I do not know of any other religion which has made a similar declaration. The Communists after WWII and the Fascists during WWII clearly wanted to destroy the United States, but they were more easily recognized as national movements. They were identified as governments, not a religious group.
Here we have religious extremists who want to destroy us, and have repeatedly acted out violence against us. It seems that they may be preying upon our niceness. We are too nice and tolerant to stop them as they infiltrate our society with the intention of destroying us from without and within.
As planes were enroute to destroy the twin towers, terrorists told the passengers to keep their seats, and no one would be hurt. They preyed upon our trust, naivete and goodness. Those cooperative passengers perished, along with nearly 3,000 others.
The philosophy in which lying and treachery are justified as means of advancing a religious war is dangerous. Clearly those who carried out the 9/11 attacks in 2001 were willing to do and say anything to achieve their goal. Those bombings were part of the holy war against the United States.
Ideally, the mosque would voluntarily be build in another location. But I find that unlikely.
We are left with two questions:
Are all (or many) Muslims really out to kill those of different faiths?
How much freedom will we grant to those who seek to kill us?
