Listen, no one believes more than me that religion is one of the most harmful concepts on the face of the earth. In a perfect world, I would get rid of all religions, but we don't live in a perfect world, and no matter how much we restrict peoples' freedoms, they will always be able to believe whatever stupid shit they want. Also, considering that Christianity and Hinduism and most of the world's other religions have been responsible for similar atrocities, we couldn't allow them to exist either.

When Christians and Hindus detonate themselves in a crowded public square in America, or kill thousands of innocent people in the name of their religion, I'll worry about them. Right now it would seem that a relative peace has been brokered with these religious groups and there haven't been any major atrocities committed by them in the name of their religion on American soil in recent history.

Again, just because a small group cites the Quran to defend their atrocities doesn't mean Islam is responsible for the actions of that group. This would be like blaming the NRA every time someone gets shot.

Of course it means that. For just a moment, pretend that Islam is an ideology, and in that ideology there is hatred for Jews and nonbelievers. Now let's look at other ideologies that share similar hatred, like Nazism, or the White Supremacists' beliefs. What makes Islam any different? That it has a god? That it has over a billion followers? Why grant it the benefit of the doubt when an ideology like Nazism is seen as repugnant?

Also following your reasoning, it should upset nobody to to build a museum dedicated to promoting Nazism at the centre (or 2 block nearby) Auschwitz's concentration camp. After all, not ALL Nazis killed Jews or even believe in killing Jews.

And these people who lost their families are in no way the "weak" party you seem to be referring to.

I was referring to the New Yorkers who lived in the area at the time of the attack, in addition to the families.

They have the support of 99.99999% of Americans, including myself, backing them up, but just because they have suffered loss doesn't mean they have the right to deny millions of innocent, hardworking Muslim Americans their equal protection under the law.

They aren't denying Muslims equal protection. It is their right to choose how their city is zoned, in addition to the ability to protest something they disagree with.

However, going back to my Nazism example:

The Jews have the support of the majority of Americans, but that doesn't give them the right to deny millions of Hardworking Neonazis their equal protection under the law (to build a Holocaust denying museum at the site of a concetration camp).

Anyway, some people who lost family members are defending the right of the Muslims to build this community center, because they realize that these are not the same people who attacked us in 2001. ( http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/9-11-families-speak-out-on-ground-zero-muslim-center/19581141 ).

Ever hear of the term "useful idiot?"

And why is this "spitting in the face of the people who died"? Many who died were Muslims.

Surprise! Muslims love to kill each other too, because Sect A thinks Sect B are apostates.

To answer your question, it's because Islam was used to justify the deaths of those people. I don't care how you try to smooth this fact over with PR-speak propaganda, but the bottom line is that in a polite, respectful society you don't champion an ideology with a death count on the grave of its victims, or even in walking distance of those victims.

To put it in a way you might understand, would it be appropriate to build shrines to our soldiers at the sites of where all those Iraqis died? No. We would would have the common decency to let the families grieve, and honour the memory of those who died without purpose by building it someplace else. This is an enlightened, polite attitude. Yet you don't even demand the same of the Muslims? No, you're too eager to please their community, to earn their respect at the cost of violating our dead.

I'm protecting the freedoms guaranteed by our country's founders. Any legal citizen has a right to build whatever the hell they want wherever they want if they have the money for it. I maintain my position that if people were so offended by this they could buy the space from the Muslims and use it for the new headquarters of the Damn the Ugly Muslims Band (or DUMB for short), or anything else they wanted to, but they have instead decided to whine about it to the city and the country, who have no right to take the property away from them, and essentially do nothing.

Hubris.

Your section about "a political move designed to seed propaganda in the Middle East" is purely conjecture and there is no reason backing it up so unless you would like to support your statements I see no reason to respond to them.

It's not really conjecture, more an educated guess based on watching fundamentalists in the Middle East, as well as on our shores, and knowing how they think. In the middle east, and in Pakistan, there are major efforts by al Qaeda factions to gain martyrs, and soldiers. Their situation is a hopeless one. If we valued life as little as they do, we could flatten their entire continent with thermonuclear weapons. So, their major means of continuing operation is through propaganda (to build support and hope) and raising money through donations by a loyal populace, some loyal governments who donate off the books, and drug trafficking.

but, although you do not mention what your principles are, I don't think we are supporting the same principles. I am defending the essential liberties of human beings, while you seem to be supporting no more than anti-Muslim bigotry.

That's because you think this is a religious issue. Your head is up your butt so to speak with political correctness and tolerance of diversity, so that you seem to have forgotten that there are more important matters, like respecting the dead, and not giving our common enemy a morale boost (you do remember don't you that we are at war in the middle east right now, WITH ISLAMISTS?).

Finally, I'm not turning a blind eye to Islam or trying to appease Muslims, but even if I was I don't understand how that equates to giving up my liberty for some security. It literally makes no sense. Protecting their liberties doesn't mean in any way that I am giving up my own.

The point of political correctness (which is the soul of your argument) is appeasement of the various ideologies and religions and peoples through sacrifice of one thing for another. It's a subtle way of making tolerance into a political power game.

Your defense of "Muslim rights" is a sacrifice to (hopefully) gain favour with their community so that they act less hostile towards us (you didn't think that we were the aggressors here, did you? why do you think so much rampant censorship exists? fear).

The way it becomes an exchange of liberty for security is that we keep trading freedoms (like the freedom to display Muhammad, the freedom to mock their religion, the freedom to criticise it, the freedom to deny construction of a mosque on matters of taste, etc.) for the supposed security that comes from a happier Muslim community. It backfires when we have given up so much that we can no longer speak out against them, when we start to impose blasphemy laws, etc.

Yes, I undestand that. But religions are not direct reflections of their respective holy books. The ideas in these books are heavily interpreted to fit enivornment, cultural and other situtational circumstances.

The vast majority of Muslims do not endorse terroism. http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/02/27/poll-majority-muslims-worldwide-condemn- 9-11/

Again:

The Quran endorses violence and intolerance which leads to terrorism. That's all that matters here. You don't endorse a book which recommends death to the infidel near the site of dead infidels.

I don't think that's true at all. I think there would be little to no protests, because Christianity is the dominant religion in the US.

I was thinking more along the lines of Islam's supporters very skillfully playing the "race card" and "intolerance card" whenever people are outspoken against it. Christianity has lost this ability.

I think you misjudge the situation. People aren't afraid of Muslims. I'm not. Because the vast majority are not violent. And even if they were violent they would not be able to do much harm. And even if they could do harm it would be wrong to allow terrorists to dictate our actions.

A modern example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_(South_Park)#Censorship

However that's just a drop in the pail. Try looking into Europe's treatment of Islam and criticism of Islam.

The boundaries surrounding freedom of speech have been well defined by the Supreme Court. This mosque lies well within those boundaries.

I wasn't making that argument. I was arguing that a simple reading of the constitution is insufficient anymore because of laws evolving around it. So, making it into a mere "freedom of religion" argument is insufficient.

They opened fire on a religious movement, which was Christian, which did kill a bunch of people. It's the exact same thing but a different religion.

So the US government killed those people in the name of god? I fail to see the similarity. One is a group of people declaring war by killing infidels in the name of their god, the other is a government provoking hostility with a religious cult which lead to deaths.

Nazis are allowed to assemble in this country. They have every right, and in fact they do in many instances.

Yet if they tried to build a Nazi history museum, or cultural centre with a booth dedicated to promoting Nazi pride, near the site of recent holocaust victims we would be protest them with every fibre of our beings. We would look for any legal way to impede them. We would NOT see it as an important milestone in the effort to build a relationship with the Nazi community.

It's not backwards at all. Again, not every muslim is a terrorist. Rauf isn't a terrorists. And the vast majority of the people in Arab countries aren't terrorists.

Islam was the belligerent religion, perpetrated by violent Muslims with support of their holy book. No condemnation exists for their deeds in the ideology that their book describes.

It therefore falls upon the shoulders of EVERY Muslim to take responsibility for their religion's ideology, the deeds that it led those men to.

That is the nature of religion. If your religion can call upon every member to act a certain way, believe a certain way, etc. then when someone acts in your religion's name, against international law, according to your religion's guidelines, your religion bears responsibility. Your followers bear responsibility, they bear that shame - that blemish for not living up to nobler ideals.

That is why we owe them nothing. They owe us a concerted effort to stamp out terrorism.

You seem to want to turn the US into the antithesis of Muslim religious States

Sounds good. Hell, you can know exactly how to run a country by doing the exact opposite of what Islamic states do.

a Christian religious State where only Christians have full rights. That would make the US no better than them, and is quite unamerican of you.

Swing and miss.

The antithesis of an Islamic state is a secular democracy, where women are equal to men, where homosexuals and heterosexuals are equal in law, where beheading is seen as a cruel and barbaric punishment and corporal punishments don't exist, where you can be a witch and cast your mumbo jumbo spells on others and only get laughed at, not executed for unholy magic.

In short, we are the antithesis of an Islamic state, and thank the great Juju in the sky for that. Any attempts to build a relationship with the Islamic world which demand that we follow their values is treacherous to the spirit of our great secular system.

Of course if your whole argument is that we ought to defend the right of Muslims to promote their violent faith right next to the site of people who suffered for it, because laws ought to be blind and in the name of tolerance we ought to ignore the obvious disrespect... then please support Westboro Baptist Church's right to picket the funerals of dead soldiers, and champion the rights of Nazis to deny the holocaust ever happened to their kids. I simply wouldn't have respect for someone doing this, because they're being a pedantic imbecile, oblivious to their "comrades" using them for political gain.

It is the definition of imperialism to demand one give up their culture because it happens to not be your culture. The US is not secular, it is a free nation that welcoms everyone. That is what was intended upon creation and that is what it will remain despite the right wing's reactionary cowardice.

No. The definition of imperialism is that a state expands its borders at the expense of subjugating other cultures under its control.

Even if it were true that our demanding that Muslims assimilate into our secular democratic culture were imperialistic, it would still be a good thing. The simple fact is that Muslim culture treats women as second-class citizens, is extremely repressive sexually, is superstitious towards witches and similar beliefs and practices, is extremely intolerant of different ideas. Secular democratic values, especially the liberal, secular humanist ideals, allow for a much more tolerant and respectful society.

Note that I said Muslim culture. Arab culture is not repressive, intolerant, etc. We should accept it into our lives like Hindu, Mexican, and other cultures.

Part of what made us a free nation is secularism. That our country has no state religion allows us to import other religions.

I find it quite amusing that you have a disdain for right-wing politicians and pundits but support them vehemently when they have brown skin and pray facing mecca. Did you think Muslim culture is liberal? Are you just supporting it because it's a minority here and thus an underdog? Why would you support wife-beating? Killing homosexuals?

Is that already the case with majorities? Good point! Although they only make up 1% of the nation, not even close to a majority. 22% of people in my state are secular, so I don't think we have to worry about them having the majority anytime soon.

The fear is that they may become a sizable (influential) minority as mosques turn out more of them. This is why many south Asian countries are conservative, despite not being Islamic states. They have an influential Islamic population.

If you follow the book it is like that, roughly 75% of Adult Americans are Christians yet they don't follow their book. America is a 1st world nation, and people are a bit more mature than the 2nd and 3rd world where islam is the most popular. I think they wouldn't get away with stuff like what you imply in the USA. As over generations of gaining numbers they would be assimilated into US standards of culture.

Islam is a foreign culture, with authorities nested within the centres of Islamic theocracies. They direct their followers overseas because the west is seen as decadent and corrupt for not being Islamic. Further, Islam repressed any possibility of enlightenment or renaissance, in favour of fundamentalism. Its followers are taught values that are in line with middle age thought, this is why witchcraft exists to them and women are property.

In other words, Muslims are not Christians, and you cannot expect them to liberalise within a generation of our culture. Their culture defines itself against ours and is extremely dogmatic. Building mosques only funnels this ideology into our borders.

The scariest part? Western Muslims have a history of committing sectarian violence within our democracies and monarchies. This means that importing their culture imports fundamentalists who like fundamentalist Christians will remain for many generations. The difference? They use bombs and assassinate people.

It has good points and bad points... like being kind to cats is an Islamic value. However see point #2. I am awake to what their religious rules are, as well as Christian ones, they aren't that different. Just they tend to follow doctrine more often.

It is medieval and intolerant. No good can come of importing YET ANOTHER intolerant culture within our borders. You think Christian on atheist/homosexual/abortion clinic violence is bad? Try Muslim on Christian violence ending in car bombs and explosions in crowded areas. It is guaranteed to happen, too, thanks to the guerrilla, decentralised nature of Al Qaeda and all sorts of helpful materials available online to help the anarchist Muslim form a splinter group and build bombs.