But I just took a poll on FoxNews asking the following question:
Would you be all right with the construction of a large religious center in your town?
(Note that the poll neither specifies a religion nor limits the location to Ground Zero.) And I was shocked that out of 27,573 votes, only 9.2% answered"Yes - everyone has a right to practice their religion" while 82.8% said "No - some of these places go way beyond religion." Even for FoxNews, that's ridiculously skewed. So much for the First Amendment. Freedom of religion for everyone ... except Muslims!
Granted, the poll results are no doubt framed by the debate over the placement of a mosque at Ground Zero. Perhaps folks are unable to divorce themselves from the passions of that controversy and answer in the hypothetical. Nevertheless, the poll suggests what should already be obvious: that the Ground Zero Mosque controversy is NOT just about a mosque being built at or near Ground Zero, about being sensitive to the victims' families. I won't even go into the kinds of things found in the COMMENTS to the poll (one example: 'the only place mosques belong is 10,000 feet underwater').
A Wall Street Journal op-ed a few weeks back had claimed that the debate wasn't about religious intolerance, but about common sense and sensitivity to victims, etc. etc. The writer took offense to being called a bigot. Granted there are no doubt some that oppose the mosque solely because it is near Ground Zero and wouldn't care if a mosque were built elsewhere.
But clearly the controversy is not completely innocent of religious intolerance either. News about opposition to mosques being built around the country only confirms this. It's not just about Ground Zero. It's about Americans fearing Islam.
There's a debate to be had about whether Islam and the Koran tend to encourage violence more than other religions and religious texts. (Though there's no debate to be had that not all Muslims are violent or subscribe to that interpretation of Islam or its holy text.) But so far that debate has not been had out in the open because the controversy has been falsely framed as one about Ground Zero and some people are being afraid of being labeled "intolerant" or "bigoted."
Well, if you truly believe Islam is more apt to breed terrorists and murderers, then you should be proud to be labeled "intolerant" and argue for what you believe in. With real facts and arguments, not just baseless accusations in the Fox forum.
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