I have been hesitant to wade into the fray about the mosque site near Ground Zero. I am firm in my belief that everyone has a right to their own opinion and I try to listen patiently - even when I disagree. I'm not always successful.
I believe - firmly - that there is no one path to God. Until someone has a seat next to God and tells me otherwise, all paths, when practiced with faith and love, are legitimate.
A couple of things about this national discussion bother me.
1. I see so many people on FaceBook "liking" the I do not support a Mosque 600 feet from Ground Zero page. In checking the facts, I learned that the Cordoba site is 1/4 mile away from the WTC site. 1/4 mile is 1,320 feet. Additionally, the building plan is for a community center with a place for prayer - in a building that looks like any other city building. No middle eastern architecture - minarets, domes, spires, etc. No calls to prayer over loud speakers.
2. I had a friend post on FB asking who Obama is working for when he expresses that the center should be allowed to be built. My hopeful answer to the friend's question is - I hope the President is working for a country built on religious freedom, a people composed of many faiths and one that respects private property rights.
3. The discussion hardly seems to contain references to the many Muslim Americans who died in the attacks of September 11. As pointed out by Matt Sledge in the Huffington Post, the World Trade Center site itself is already a place for Muslim prayer; by the families who lost their loved ones the day of the attacks.
4. I hear so many people call the building of the Cordoba center an insult to the memory of those who died on 9/11. I believe the bigger insult lies in many members of Congress blocking a move to provide lifetime medical care to the men and women who responded to the tragedy and suffer numerous maladies. Those people deserve our care.
5. Why are we so afraid of each other? No matter how define ourselves - Christian, Muslim, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Latin, Gay, Straight, etc. - we are all Americans. If you don't understand something that is different than you or your beliefs, ask questions. Most world religions are built on the same foundations - just using different languages.
6. Building on the Cordoba site is insensitive. But really, Islam is not responsible for the deaths on 9/11. Radical nut jobs with a distorted view of the Koran did. To say Islam is responsible is like saying all Christians are responsible for the guy who protests at military funerals, or for Timothy McVie who bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Both President Bush and President Obama has said that our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not against Islam.
7. Building on the site is a sign of Triumph or Domination. As Curt Day wrote in OpEd News, if we use the sign of triumph and domination arguement, then couldn't the same be said for every Christian Church built in a non-Christian country? Is the difference that one of the religions is not Christian?
The day the towers fell rocked me to my core. It is my hope that the lingering pain of 9/11 does not turn us into the people we most fear - radical nut jobs who have lost tolerance and are determined to group all people from one faith/one country/one region into the category of those who should be feared.
Peace.
