The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that ostensibly stands up for religious freedom and tolerance in the United States has shocked and disgusted many people, including me, by announcing their opposition to the construction of a mosque in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site.
In the vicinity! We’re not talking about on top of Ground Zero. We’re talking about nearby, somewhere in the general neighborhood in New York City.
The Anti-Defamation League appears, as a result of this bizarre proclamation, to be an organized group of bigots pretending to support tolerance.
Muslims have every right to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site. There’s nothing inappropriate or wrong about it. In fact, I think it shows a concerted effort to be a thriving part of the New York community. It’s healthy to build this mosque. It’s a better decision than building the ever-stalled ‘Freedom Tower’ which never gets an inch off the ground. Why not rename it ‘Freedom Hole.’ These people who have been protesting, including some of the relatives of 9/11 victims, are nothing more than the worst form of bigot. They couch their hatred in ‘protecting the emotional well-being of families and victims.’ By their logic we should cordon off every site of a plane crash and forbid construction by people who are of the same religious beliefs as the pilots. We should ascertain the religion of every person who commits a murder and prevent people of that religion from ever constructing churches near the murder sites. Insane. Hateful. Nonsense.
Muslims are not terrorists. Muslims are simply people who worship in a particular way. Associating Muslims with terrorism is bigotry by definition. I think someone should build a mosque on top of the Anti-Defamation League.
Here is what the Anti-Defamation League says:
Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.
So don’t build your mosque because it’ll make a bunch of backwoods idiot bigots feel bad. Wow! I’m just blown away. You know, I never give money to organized bigots. But I’ll certainly contribute to the mosque-building fund if there is one.
This insidious and creeping connection of Islam to terrorism is becoming very dangerous. It’s getting worse quickly. It’s spreading all over the U.S. and Europe. If the Anti-Defamation League feels that is can say something like this then we are in very bad shape indeed.
The idea of the ADL trying to keep a minority religious group from building a house of worship is ironic.
However, it is far from surprising. When religious groups get power in a society, they always end up persecuting minority faiths. Islam certainly does this when it is in the majority. In Sri Lanka, there is religious persecution and warfare between two religions that have nothing to do with Islam, Judaism, or Christianity.
Religion is divisive, by its very nature. Humanity would be much better off if people would mature out of their religious beliefs, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.
Libhomo,
I totally agree with you. I find religion, in general, to be incredibly divisive. The world would in fact be much better off if people would admit that what they believe to be the word of a god is simply a very interesting folktale. Nothing more and nothing less than that. Finding meaning and instruction in a folktale is not a bad thing. But worshiping the folktale as the absolute instruction manual from on high is childish and primitive in the extreme.
However, none of this point of view gives the ADL any excuse for siding with anti-Muslim bigotry that is spreading like a dangerous wildfire all over the United States and beyond. We have a serious problem here and it is getting worse very quickly.
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