Why the hell are they calling this mosque they want to build in Manhattan "Cordoba house?"

[Faceman]

I suppose Japanese people shouldn't be allowed to live in Hawaii either, because it might offend victims and families of victims of Pearl Harbor.

Perspective.

Hawaii was 1/3 Japanese prior to the bombing and they have a shrine 5 miles away not 5 blocks.

[Zao]

Perspective.

Read my post again carefully, please, and contemplate the irony of this post.

I suppose Japanese people shouldn't be allowed to live in Hawaii either, because it might offend victims and families of victims of Pearl Harbor.

We fought a regime and attacked it's racial people here, which was a mistake, but the racism was secondary to the problem at hand. This is different. This is a religion, an ideal. You can kill a regime (like we did in Iraq and other places), you can't kill an idea. I find your point irrelevant, again.

Or are we only allowed to stop hatin' once a generation has mostly died off?

That seems to be the general way of things, historically. Dig in and research the crusades and you'll see we've made quite a bit of progress as a species. I'm glad you can view it so idealistically. Count yourself blessed, you're ahead of most of the planet that way. Most of the rest of us are still caught up in vested emotional interests. As for myself, I will continue to allow myself to feel about things however I goddamn please and until that's illegal as well, I'll exercise that right.

Just because the American newsmedia doesn't report on it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Unnecessarily antagonistic and bad form.

[Burris]

Perspective.

I suppose Japanese people shouldn't be allowed to live in Hawaii either, because it might offend victims and families of victims of Pearl Harbor.

Or are we only allowed to stop hatin' once a generation has mostly died off?

The Japanese have been in Hawaii since the 19th century Rob.

Plus what you're implying is just trying to bring up some kind of racial connotation to this.

A more accurate way to describe what you just said is should the Japanese government build a memorial for their Japanese dead just outside Pearl Harbor's Naval Base and say it was to promote better understanding.

Yeah, I think the victims and families of victims of Pearl Harbor would be understandably upset about that.

[Rob]

To shift gears for a bit, here's the AP doing something I'm not comfortable with: dictating how news should be told. Though I agree with the sentiment that it's disingenuous and misleading to call the proposed site a "Ground Zero mosque", this is just as bad IMO.

[Latzen]

To shift gears for a bit, here's the AP doing something I'm not comfortable with: dictating how news should be told. Though I agree with the sentiment that it's disingenuous and misleading to call the proposed site a "Ground Zero mosque", this is just as bad IMO.

As if this kind of thing hasn't been going on since before Hearst, during Hearst and all the way through to now since Hearst.

Rob, I think the problem with all of your arguments for this thing is that your using blanket comparisons. Of course a lot of stubborn, ignorant Americans reject the Mosque and Community center because they refuse to believe that Islam is anything but a monolithic anti-America machine (just like Socialism). BUT, there are a lot of Americans (El Presidente included, apparently) that can draw distinctions between a nuanced religion and its right to exist and worship wherever it will, and a single group of religious people trying to exercise their rights at the expense of wisdom, sensitivity and good taste.
Your goal is to make Islam present and visible passive to New York? I would think your first course of action would to avoid being pushy at most costs. I know that the real estate market in NYC has got to be a nightmare, and that religious groups need space to expand as their constituencies expand...but really? How big of a blind spot do you have to have to not guess that you're going to piss off a ton of people by building an enormous complex in a sensitive area.
They preach tolerance and pacifism, but their bullish insistence on forging ahead really sends a message of arrogance...as though they not only have the right to worship, but also somehow have the right to be dissociated with extremists that claim the same religious banner.

Speaking from an actively Christian perspective: how much work do I need to do to dissociate myself from abusive priests, poor doctrine, misinterpreted bibles, racists, pro-life militancy, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and general asshats in order to have a straight forward conversation with you about Jesus? A lot. And I absolutely can't walk into a Christ or Christian centric discussion without understanding that I'll face all of the baggage related to the Crusades, and the Catholics, and the Westboros, and the Dobsons and etc., ad naseum. Is any of that my fault? No. But it's asinine to expect that people already inclined to be mistrustful of my claimed beliefs won't be uncomfortable with me. I simply cannot expect to sit down next to a victim of clergy abuse, say, "Hey, bro, Jesus loves you!" and get anything but a smack in the mouth.

This is a thorny issue that has less to do with Islam and more to do with impressions of Islam and the choices of some seriously misguided, well-meaning muslims. Of course I've just finished teasing out my opinion, but really, the final word should belong to New York City.
This group has the right to build, but good sense says they shouldn't.

[Rob]

Latzen to the rescue as usual. Also, Burris, I just wanted to say that that's pretty much the most rational and levelheaded post I can remember you writing. I don't mean that as a backhanded comment, I mean that as a straight-up compliment. While I think there is a racial component to the issue at hand, I really can't argue with anything else you said there. Well played.

And now I'm done being serious, here's some derp

[Face]

There are two rallies today, one for and one against the mosque, each a block away from each other.

[Cheeto]

I wonder if it was presented in the light of "an Islamic community center is building a memorial to the innocent people who died at the 9/11 attacks near ground zero" if anyone would be as upset. It seems a lot of this stems from the fact that it's a site of Islamic worship that is apparently too close to the site of one of the worst fundamentalist Islamic attacks the world has ever seen. If it were presented differently (which is fair, since it contains both a memorial and a mosque, since we're focusing on one, why not switch and focus on the other instead) I think there'd be a lot more positive reactions.

That said, the unease about it is understandable, though wholly illogical. But then religion and society never really liked dealing with logic, and sometimes you just gotta bow down to gut feelings and maybe try and find a better location for the community center. I bet if they continued construction of the memorial though they would get a lot of positive press out of it.

[Faceman]

The Muslims I spoke to at work do not agree with the location of the mosque.

[Zirconium Blade]

Heard that 70% of Amurcans are against it (from a scratch poll). Obama in deep shit now.