I've remembered!

If you read my previous post on SB 1070, the for-profit prison system, and marriage equality you will remember that I said I had another issue that I thought important to discuss but had forgotten it at the time I sat down to write. Well....I've remembered!

It's this "Ground Zero Mosque" business. Everyone's freaking out. The President has weighed in on the topic during the annual Iftar dinner (did Bush do that too? Would that make him a closet Muslim?) at the White House. Polls have been taken every which way with (surprisingly) Fox News' being the best. And news and opinion people of all stripes have had their say. So now I'm going to have mine.

Firstly, check out the map at the top of the 538.com post I linked to. It's the second link down in the above paragraph. That's what people mean by "at Ground Zero". They actually mean not at Ground Zero. The proposed location is some 5 blocks from Ground Zero in a closed Burlington Coat Factory. So important fact number one is that when someone says, "They're going to build a Mosque at Ground Zero! That's so wrong!" they have their facts wrong.

Important point number two, more widely disseminated by the media, is the fact that this is really a community center. It will have worship spaces. But it'll also have a swimming pool and art rooms and all sorts of stuff. It's a sort of Islamic YMCA as this sketch from Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution makes clear.

Important point number three, which should be noted to be the most important, is that Amendment One to the Constitution states in part:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

 That's the first part of the very short, very explicit First Amendment. Our country doesn't have an official religion. Congress can't make an official religion. And people are free to practice their religion how, when, and where they want provided that it doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights; which Islam doesn't.

President Obama had a moment at the Iftar that I think reminds me of the way he talked on the campaign trail. It's very moving. In part, this is what he had to say.

 Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -– particularly New York.  Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan.  The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country.  And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable.  So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders.  And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

But let me be clear.  As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country.  And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.  This is America.  And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.  The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are.  The writ of the Founders must endure.

You're free to make the argument that a mosque or Islamic cultural center that close to Ground Zero is in poor taste. I don't think it is. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who want to actually stop the construction/move in. They want to use eminent domain and other governmental powers to keep this from happening. And that's unconstitutional. In short, I don't care if you think muslims are the spawn of satan. In this country they're free to worship. And I'll fight for that right. Me. The damned atheist. Freedom of Religion, as it's enshrined in the Constitution doesn't just mean Protestant versions of Christianity that you're okay with. You don't get  to pick and choose. The freedoms granted American citizens by the Constitution come free to everyone regardless of race, color, creed, sex, religion, ability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, pregnancy, how many piercings they have, whether they like oranges or not, or any other status that you can thing of to use to discriminate against people.

Let's be honest. This is just intolerance and muslim bashing. Just like the rest of the last ten years. I'm pretty thoroughly ashamed of my country and how it has reacted to the events of 9/11. It could have been a turning point for us and for the world. Instead it's just another excuse for war and division.

EDIT: They have a wonderful post with a couple of points I didn't even think of over at Feministe. Take a look.

And One More Thing...

I just got wind of this set of polling data from ABC News/Washington Post and Quinnipiac. Taking the two polls together it suggests that somewhere between 52 and 61 percent of the American Public supports trying terror suspects like the Underpants Bomber Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab in military tribunals instead of civilians courts. In this case the ABC News poll was of "adults" by phone; a very amorphous group, and the Quinnipiac poll was of registered voters. I won't pretend to be a polling expert. If you're looking for that then head over to 538.com to get all you ever wanted to know and more about evaluating polls.

In any case, I feel that even if these numbers were 30-40% instead of the 50-60% that they are, they would be too high. The Bush Administration tried terror suspects in criminal courts including Zacharias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber. Especially in the Reid case, which almost exactly parallels the attempted underpants attack, it has been shown that criminal prosecutions of these sort are usually successful (especially with an airplane load of witnesses). In fact, I think the biggest issue with this sort of trial is finding an unbiased jury. That, I think is also the biggest problem in the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial. Where are you going to find 12 unbiased people within 100 miles of NYC? Or anywhere in the United States for that matter?

In any case, the arguements that have been made against civilian trials stem from the position that most of the "enemy combatants" that we're dealing with are not American citizens and so have no Miranda rights and so forth. I would argue that while this may be technically true, the rights afforded Americans under the Constitution and annunciated in the Declaration of Independence are there because they were viewed by the founders as basic human rights.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

It is our duty as Americans to be better than those we oppose. Trying these men in civilian courts upholds the impartiality of our justice system as many on both sides of the aisle have noted. It also shows that we truly value that which is written into our basic founding documents. I don't see that we have any other choice unless we wish to return to the Bush era of being viewed as hypocrites by most of the free world.