The Cordoba Initiative which proposes to build an Islamic Center that will include a mosque near New York City’s Ground Zero has brought out the best and the worst responses by concerned Americans.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the project and made an impassioned speech about religious freedom and tolerance in America on August 3, 2010. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin decried the building of the center, referring to ground zero as “hallowed ground” in her Facebook blog on July 22, 2010.
Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and possible presidential candidate in 2012, flatly wrote “no mosque at ground zero” and warned Americans of “creeping Sharia in the United States.” Throughout the Cold War, the phrase “creeping socialism” was often employed to warn Americans that freedom and democracy had to be defended. Gingrich is reapplying the terminology to fit Islam. But the proposed center at Ground Zero is not the only new mosque being opposed.
Nationwide Protests Over Mosques Increases
From Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn to Temecula in California, angry Americans are participating in protests and are being met by other Americans supportive of their Muslim neighbors. Those opposed to the building of new mosques and Islamic centers cite traffic problems, but too often intolerance and fear is the chief motivator.
At the Sheepshead Bay protest, according to The Brooklyn Paper, one protester told the newspaper, “They’re not going to stay here alive.” The article stated that “…intolerance was common at the rally.” At the Temecula protest, signs like “No Sharia Law” represented the unfounded fear that Muslims were attempting to supplant American law.
Ignorance of Islam Fuels Fear and Intolerance
In an August 8, 2010 op-ed piece in the Huffington Post, Imam Feisal Rauf attempted to address these fears. Focusing on the often extreme cases of applied Sharia law such as the Taliban followed in Afghanistan, Rauf states that, “The two pieces of unfinished business in Muslim countries are to revise the penal code so that it is responsive to modern realities and to ensure that the balance between the three branches of government is not out of kilter.”
After 9/11, Americans looked at Islam more closely, particularly since President Bush repeatedly used phrases like “the war on terror.” Many Americans heard terms like jihad and fatwa for the first time but knew very little about Islam as a global religion. Some drew erroneous conclusions that all Muslims fit the terrorist or extremist mold. Books like Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban (Yale University Press, 2001) detailed militant Islam, but could not be fully understood by everyday Americans who lacked a rudimentary understanding of the Islamic faith tradition.
A History of Religious Intolerance Continues
Religious intolerance in America can be traced back to the Puritans of New England, who would just as soon hang a Quaker or a Catholic. In the Calvinist Dutch New Amsterdam colony, Governor Peter Stuyvesant refused to accept a ship carrying refugee Jews. Virginia’s official Anglicanism made Sunday church attendance mandatory whether one was an Anglican or not.
During the 19th Century religious intolerance grew worse. Mormons were forced to trek to Utah after having been repeatedly uprooted by often hostile and violent neighbors. The Know-Nothing Party was formed in the 1850s to deny rights to Catholics. In the 20th Century, American Jews were subjected to Anti-Semitism. Today, intolerance targets Muslims.
Intolerance and Ignorance Perpetuate Fear
Anti-mosque protests continue in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. According to the website of the Islamic Society of Sheboygan, “Muslim families have lived in that community for 25 years and have never had a place to pray.” Newt Gingrich, however, writes that “this is a test of our commitment to religious liberty. It is a test to see if we have the resolve to face down an ideology that aims to destroy religious liberty in America, and every other freedom we hold dear.”
The strength of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, however, is most often threatened when religious intolerance is unchecked. In 1993, the Supreme Court struck down a Hialeah, Florida statute that forbade members of the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye from conducting animal sacrifices during Santeria ceremonies and rituals. Gingrich has said, “No churches in Saundi Arabia? Then no mosques near Ground Zero.” But what makes the United States different from many other societies is the determination to preserve Constitutional principles, even if the results are not liked by every citizen.
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