Definitive Post on Ground Zero Mosque

Joseph Bottum at First Things has the final definitive word on the GZM. Read the whole thing here. Summary from the tail end of the post (dang, I wish I could write like that, my TNT is not helping.):

Real democracy is messy. It’s got protestors and agitators and banners and manners and morals and financial pressures and gossip and policemen on horses keeping an eye out to make sure it doesn’t turn violent. Oh, yes, it’s also got government, but apart from paying for those policemen, government ought not to be too deeply involved as these things sort themselves out. If what the Muslims want to do is not illegal, then government should have nothing more to say.

That does not mean, however, that everyone else should also have nothing more to say. The attempt to build a large, new mosque and Islamic center anywhere near the site of the World Trade Center is so offensive, so bizarre, and so deliberate that it should be stopped.

And stopped it will be, through the offered mediation of New York’s Archbishop Dolan, or the skittishness of the financial community, or the disturbance of the neighbors, or the anger of the protestors, or the refusal of the building contractors. It will be messy, and it will be sharp. Inspiring and disturbing, with loud shouts on the streets and a few quiet words in the back rooms.

But that’s democracy—it’s how things get done when you accept that government shouldn’t do everything. The churches and the synagogues have long experience with this kind of democratic negotiation. Time for the mosques to learn how to do it, too.

Obligatory Ground Zero Mosque Post

Long time commenter and reader Road Dawg calls me out for not having much to say on the Ground Zero Mosque, aka Islamic Cultural Center. How can I tolerate a monument to their evil victory in an attack that killed thousands of Americans? He doesn't really word it that way, but I believe that is the gist of his argument which I liberate from the comments:

Naming the mosque at Ground Zero the "Cordoba House" is not a coincidence. Ancient Muslims invaded and occupied Spanish city of Cordoba where Muslims built a Mosque over the rubbles of a Catholic church as a symbol of their triumph and victory over Spanish infidels. Citing evidence that the Taiba Mosque is still acting as a jihadist recruitment center, police in the northern German city of Hamburg have shut it down indefinitely.

My position? I oppose the idea of a mosque at that site, but I also oppose action by government to stop it. I will applaud every protest at that site if the center is built. However, it falls into the category of lots of other things that I oppose, but refuse to support state suppression of, because granting the state the power to correct the problem I want solved inevitably leads to a long string of abuses of that very power. I don't like pornography, swearing, fools on motorcycles who don't wear helmets, cigarettes, fools in cars who don't wear seat belts, marijuana, and generally anything inspired by hippies. But in a free society, we put limits on the power of government to correct these ills, because the cure is truly worse than the disease.

If the mosque is used for recruiting jihadis, then we arrest those who do so. (By the way, it might be useful to gather them in one place.) Allowing the building of the mosque serves other ends as well. First, it shows that the Muslims aren't interested in reaching out to the rest of America, because they are slapping us in the face over an issue of great pain, especially to New Yorkers. Second, it provides a useful precedent to allow us to build churches and synagogues any dang place we please. Third, it gives us the opportunity to provoke and ridicule their attitudes.

Certainly proper legal form needs to be followed, the source of funding should be revealed, just like we publicize campaign contributions. That would allow us to call them out. But just as the ultimate answer to campaign lies isn't a ministry of truth, the answer to this provocation is counter-provocation, such as Greg Gutfeld's idea of a Gay Muslim Bar next door.

At the end of the day, I am all for making their lives as miserable as legally possible for poking our eye, but opposed to government picking favorites on the basis of the popularity or lack thereof of their religion. But just to poke fun at those beating their breasts to support this horrible idea, here is Ann Coulter with the last word on the subject: