I really try to keep my blog from being political in any way. But there are some things that just piss me off. One of them is Newt Gingrich.
Today, Gingrich became the latest in a line of politicians to denounce a proposed Mosque to be built near the World Trade Center site1. For some reason, it offends these guys that a Mosque will be that close to a place that was destroyed by terrorists who happen to (theoretically) share the same religion, and even then, it only offends them because they’re afraid of something different. Now I know this is stretching my point a little bit, but does anyone care how close the closest Catholic church is to the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City? Timothy McVeigh always claimed to have held onto the “core beliefs” of Catholicism2. It’s ridiculous and idiotic how much people fear and hate people who are simply different, and it’s pathetic that we let the politicians who represent us express that idiocy out loud.
As quoted on nydailynews.com, the former Speaker of the House said “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.”1 I’m just wondering what a cultural center and house of worship is doing to destroy our civilization. Ever heard of the First Amendment, Newt? It seems to me like freedom of religion is a pretty big part of our civilization.
New York state Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino even said he would use imminent domain to stop the building from going up. Now, come on! Imminent domain is a scary enough concept without being used to blatantly stop someone from expressing their religion.
About.com has compiled a list of at least 59 victims of the September 11th attacks who were Muslims3. One man, Salman Hamdani, was an EMT whose remains were discovered next to his medical bag. This guy went into this situation trying to save other people’s lives. 59 out of 2976 is nearly 2% of all victims of the attack, which is pretty representative of the US as a whole. The upper estimate of the number of Muslims in America is about 2.2% of the population4. Muslims suffered losses on September 11th just like the rest of the country. Why should they be disallowed to worship in a particular place because of something a group of extremists did?
I’ll leave you with my thoughts on a Sarah Palin quote in the same article, obtained from her Twitter account: “Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts,” she wrote. “Pls reject it in interest of healing.”1
How about in the “interest of healing,” we stop hating people by association?
1Source: New York Daily News article Newt Gingrich comes out against planned Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero.
2Source: Timothy McVeigh.
3Source: Muslim Victims of September 11th Attack.
4Calculated by Danny based on the Muslim population statistic from this article and the total population statistic from this one.
