I have been avoiding the fact that the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" is not a mosque but a community center with a basket ball court, swimming pool, cooking classes, and with the top two floors devoted to prayer.
I have done so on the grounds that I do not want to get into suggesting that an appropriate response is, "It's not a mosque, so then it's okay."
No. Even if it WERE a mosque, the protests against it amount to hate-mongering bigotry.
However, there is another relevant moral issue related to the fact that this is a community center and not a mosque.
It means that these hate-mongering bigots who use the term are lying.
They could not muster enough hate (and obtain sufficient political and economic contributions for themselves and their allies) by telling the truth, so they decided to lie.
They decided to package a community center as a mosque because this particular packaging - this false advertising - this "bearing false witness" - generates more hatred than the truth.
While I do not want to get into promoting the fallacy that, "It is a community center and not a mosque so that's okay."
I do think it is important to point out that, "The people we are protesting this are not only bigots, and the most public of them are hate-mongering bigots (people who sell hatred of a group for political or economic gain). A substantial portion of them are LYING hate-mongering bigots.
America deserves better citizens than this. Actually, everybody deserves better neighbors than this.
12 comments:
I dunno. The planned Islamic community center contains a mosque that will be 'separate' from the non-mosque things like restaurant and pool. So it's correct to say they'd like to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero, at the former site of Burlington Coat Factory.
Otherwise, I agree with what you've said so far.
I dunno. The planned Islamic community center contains a mosque that will be 'separate' from the non-mosque things like restaurant and pool. So it's correct to say they'd like to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero, at the former site of Burlington Coat Factory.
Otherwise, I agree with what you've said so far.
Well, I was informed that a mosque cannot be used for any other purpose but prayer.
However, upon reading your objection, it occured to me that one could define the structure as an 11 story community center and a separate 2 story mosque that is used for nothing but prayer, depending on how one cuts the conceptual pie.
I hereby retract the accusation of lying.
But the original charges of hate-mongering and bigotry still apply.
I think it may depend on the sect of Islam we're talking about. Different sects have different rules for reasons relating to their particular version of their supernatural beliefs.
The larger point is -- it doesn't matter what they want to do with their property. People in the United States of America have a right to put their property to any legal use they see fit. Careful readers will note the lack of adjectives before the word "People" in the preceding sentence; that right does not apply only to Christian people or non-Muslim people or popular people or rich people.
You had it right the first time. Lying hate mongering bigots.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_08/025282.php
The project's web page itself refers to the mosque as ... well, a mosque (http://www.park51.org/facilities.htm). It also includes a swimming pool, meeting areas, and even a 9/11 memorial and contemplation room, but it doe include a mosque.
But the whole "Ground Zero" thing (and much of the other rhetoric related to the critics of the project) does fall under the category of "LYING hate-mongering bigots," so I think you're okay.
Well if you listen to fox news, which I unfortunately have had the misfortune to do of late, they are still billing it as a 15 story mega-mosque...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqJj5nOPmWY
about 2:30 into the video, the guest calls it a mega-mosque, though I suppose it wasn't the fox news person but they never corrected it or took issue with it...
They are also not paying attention to the cordoba initiative name change...
I don't know if you should retract your lying claim so quickly.
They may not be specifically lying but they are definitely being intentionally misleading.
They are still calling it the cordoba thing there too.
Also: at best calling it "a mosque" would still be lying by ommission. It's like calling a mall a Gap because it has a Gap in it.
It doesn't accurately describe what it is, and this is done because the people calling it such want to play to prejudices of people who will expect that in the ruins of the world trade center a 'death to America' Qutb style mosque rathere than the community center with prayer area (mosque) that it is.
And if you look at the development of this hate campaign in context, it also further illustrates how the description of the center as a mosque was used to appeak to fear, paranoia, bigotry.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins
"monster mosque" Gelleer called it.
Like I said in a previous post, "this is a mosque like a YMCA with a chapel is a church."
My point in bringing this up is that this sort of misrepresentation kills the point of further conversation or moral analysis with these people.
If I find a that my hamburger has been replaced with a cow chip, I don't feel the need to make sure that the cow chip is in fact 100% cow chip before sending it back.
I just don't know why some of the people who have different religion are isolating themselves to others.
Plans to build Cordoba House have brought out the worst in right-wingers, who spew Islamophobic rhetoric at the very idea. At first, I was annoyed at their fear-mongering, until I heard about Murfreesboro, TN.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/29/tennessee.mosque.site.fire/index.html
Fear-mongering has consequences, and I'm nervous that something similar could occur at the Cordoba House site. Violence like this has no place in a civilized society.
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