Obama supports Ground Zero mosque. Religious freedom or is he being too PC?

If the ground is so "sacred" then why are we building commercial office space on it?I want to say "I don't get the controversy", but I do get the controversy - it's a bunch of bullshit "think of the victims" meant to conceal anti-Muslim bigotry.Don't get me wrong, I hate religion, and Islam as a religion has a lot of problems. Much of it stands in stark contrast to the principles I hold dear. But one of those principles is religious freedom, and that's a freedom I depend on in order to stay an atheist. You know who they come after, after they're done with the Muslims?Us.

Why? The discussion begins and ends with First Amendment rights.If Osama bin Laden got together with Jeremiah Wright to build a church in New York - where basically anything at all is "within so-and-so of 'ground zero'" - that would be their First Amendment rights.It's not "babbling", it's the US Constitution, which we all thought used to mean something to conservatives.

But those people are racist bigots who feel that a mosque in Temecula, California is "too close to Ground Zero." And who says they're not very sensitively saying "we understand your regrettable bigotry, but we're not going to allow it to cost us the millions of dollars it would cost to move the site?"Why does "sensitivity" have to only mean full capitulation to bigots? I guess we can put the First Amendment along with the Second as another American right you're not such an enormous supporter of.

Sure. Why can't they be respected by very respectfully building the Cordoba House on the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory, like they've planned to, all along? Sure. Frequently we do it by very respectfully showing respectful pictures of their respectful prophet. Right. Well, you know, Americans love Muslims, it's really too bad that 9/11 victims and their families aren't more popular and widely regarded, they just can't get a fair shake around here, huh? Freedom of speech isn't something the American media can bestow. That's a right protected by our Constitution. Of course if you want to see pictures of the Prophet Mohammed you need look no further than Wikipedia so I'm not entirely clear in what sense you think your free speech rights have somehow been curtailed at the hands of America's one million Muslims.

Why should they go to such enormous expense, when they could show their sensitivity to the offended by simply sensitively building the mosque precisely where they've already planned to?Why does "sensitivity" have to only mean not building the mosque?

No, it's named Cordoba precisely in reference to the Spanish community of Cordoba, which was for centuries a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews co-habited peacefully.

And what is the evidence for that "alternative view", aside from anti-Muslim animus? Oh shit! Christians and Jews weren't allowed to engage in the abomination called "slavery" by owning another human being! Oh, the oppression!

I appreciate that.Probably on that note I'm going to go back to lurking, since classes start tomorrow and I'm staring down the barrel of some complicated math and chemistry that, frankly, I'm not very good at.

That's a word in English. Why do you think it describes something that happened in medieval Spain? Me neither. How does Christians and Jews building a Muslim community center in New York place us under religious fundamentalism?Isn't fundamentalism where we tell Muslims they can't build mosques?

Oni, there's a picture of Mohammed on the United States Supreme Court, so Mohammed has been depicted on television every time that building has been televised (which is pretty frequently.) He's been on Morgan Spurlock's TV show. He's been shown on South Park.I mean, at this point you're criticizing the American media for not just tucking in pictures of Mohammed for no reason but to piss off Muslims. Depictions of Mohammed on TV are so frequent as to pass beneath notice. Why do you think I haven't? (Because then I would be a bigot opposed to the free expression of religion?) Why do you think I'm being "disrespectful"?Why does "respect" have to mean taking orders from nativist bigots? Why can't it be respectful to respectfully tell them we're going to do what we already planned on doing? Um, no, freedom of speech isn't something the media can take away from anybody. It's simply not possible for the media to somehow prevent you from speaking. But they have aired it. "Super Best Friends", didn't you see it? Hilarious.

Fine, so it's French. Again - why do you think it describes conditions in medieval Spain?Do you in fact have anything but anti-Muslim animus, here?

Why do you think Christians and Jews would fund and oversee a project to construct "a shrine to what happened on 9/11"? (By which I assume you mean a shrine to the hijackers, and not the victims, for which there are like a bazillion shrines all over the place.)Why do you think a major corporate partner to Fox News would fund a shrine to the 9/11 hijackers?Do you think that because racist nativists told you that's what was going to be in the Park51 center?

Just to demonstrate your consistency, can you link to a post where you blamed the plight of the Jews on the actions of Israel?Or is "guilt by association" only for Muslims?

No, it's not. Just like morality is not a two-way street: two wrongs don't make a right.