Ground Zero Mosque - Tolerance, Racism or Comedy?

Oh come now, this is painfully obvious.The author is attempting to appear "wise" by suggesting that people very specifically do things to offend Muslims for no other purpose, because the author feels offended that the "Mosque" (which is of course not really a Mosque but is actually a community center, and is not actually located at Ground Zero, and which is farther away from Ground Zero than an actual Mosque that predates the existence of the Twin Towers...) is being built.Yes, it should be perfectly legal for gay nightclubs or pork butchers to open near a Mosque. Equal rights means that, so long as you get the proper permits and obey zoning laws, you can build whatever you want wherever you want. But the author isn't making an honest business suggestion, he's just trying to suggest a way to offend Muslims. He's suggesting harassment and trying to be funny.Just like most chain letters, this is just another dissemination of hate and lies. I'm sure the author thought he was being clever and funny, but he comes across as just another Muslim-hater.I understand that the author and a large number of Americans feel like Muslims are doing exactly that with the "Ground Zero Mosque" (fuck I hate our media for letting that wildly inaccurate and inflammatory designation stick), but I've seen no convincing argument that shows that the building of the community center was intended to harass or annoy anyone - the people who are offended seem to think that such intent is simply self-evident, as if any Muslim anything is in itself an inflammatory symbol on the level of a cross burning on your front lawn.And even if it were, two wrongs does not make a right - if you feel offended by a Muslim community center a short distance from Ground Zero, that does not give you the right to then seek to offend Muslims (well, ethically; legally you can do quite a bit of offending). You won't break any cycle of intolerance by being intolerant yourself.Okay, I;ve ranted. Stop sharing chain letters, they piss me off.

Repeat after me, Coyote -Responsibility for the actions of some or even many or most Muslims is not borne by all Muslims.Asinine backwards barbaric uncivilized cultural bullshit like amputations are correlated to local culture, not the religion, even when the religion specifically suggests such courses of actions. You don;t see Christians today burning witches in Western nations - only in culturally backwards barbaric uncivilized places like regions of third-world Africa. You don't see Muslims in the US seriously suggesting that we set up Sharia courts and pattern our justice system off of that of Saudi Arabia.Yes, we do get the occasional "honor killing" here in the US - as a cultural stowaway from people who immigrated from one of those backwards barbaric cultures.You will not reduce the amount of barbaric bullshit perpetrated by Muslims by getting "fed up," nor does being "fed up" give you the ethical right to then seek to intentionally offend Muslims as an entire group for the actions of a subset.The pure fact is, the imam behind the a-few-blocks-away-from-Ground-Zero-not-really-a-Mosque hasn't ordered anybody's hands or feet cut off. He and his congregation have not shouted "death to America." They have burned no flags, did not pilot any planes into any buildings, have created no IEDs, and have done nothing at all to earn your ire other than being Muslim and suggesting that a Muslim community center might be a good way to promote tolerance and mutual understanding.If you're targeting this specific project because you're "fed up," you're just taking out your frustrations on a convenient and unrelated target. Stop that.

Sort of an all-faiths community center with worship serves for every flavor of faith in the community? That sounds like a spectacular idea for promoting interfaith understanding and helping a sense of community override the separations of the faiths themselves.Perhaps the best way to integrate disparate cultures and discourage racism and other tribalistic nonsense has been to make "them" your neighbors; it's harder to dehumanize people you interact with daily. How's it been working in Columbia?

...can I get one of these city planners for every city in America? Pretty please?How is public transportation? Are there available statistics on cultural, racial and income diversity?This is how you actually fight any type of tribalistic separation, from racism to religious discrimination to a simple failure to integrate with surrounding culture: force the issue so that "them" is included in "us" by making people live together. Civil rights in this country have improved largely as people were made to see persecuted minorities as people and fellow community members first, before whatever distinction formerly separated them.

Their speech is protected, certainly.But what about the location and time they choose to express it?Considering that the Phelps clan's purpose is primarily to harass and annoy military personnel, their families, and homosexuals and their supporters, couldn't they simply be required to take their free speech elsewhere?They tread dangerously close to committing actual hate crimes:

quote:

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"A hate crime is a criminal offense. In the United States federal prosecution is possible for hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity." In 2009, the Matthew Shepard Act added perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability to the federal definition, and dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally-protected activity.

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If you can make absolutely any charge stick (harassment comes to mind), it becomes a hate crimeI think of the Phelpses much like I think of the KKK - they have the right to say whatever they want and hold whatever views they feel are right for them, regardless of how the rest of us feel. But the KKK doesn't have the right to express their speech by burning a cross on some black family's lawn, and I don't think the Phelpses should be able to invade the privacy of a funeral to tell the family members that their dead son/daughter/spouse/friend/whatever deserved to die as a punishment from God.Of course, I strongly suspect that, whether they actually believe what they say or not, the Phelps clan is just running a giant scam, baiting people into doing something they can be sued for. A significant fraction of the family practice law (as I recall, Fred's license was revoked a while back), and they have a long history of saying something nasty to provoke people, getting assaulted or moved off of property or what have you, and then suing over free speech protections and getting a bunch of money out of the deal. They're a bit different from your average hatemongers, not only in vehemence (which is not always the case anyway) but in that they seem to have made hate a profitable enterprise.

It's illegal to harass some kid going to public school over his race or perceived gender identity or what have you and thus discourage him from attendance. It's illegal for the KKK to burn their cross on the public sidewalk just off of the private property of a black family's lawn.I don't think it's about privacy at all. I think it's about the right not to be harassed, which exists in public just as much as in private. I think the relevant fact is not whether the grounds are public or private, but the proximity of the speech to those its directed against, and whether its intent can be reasonably ascertained to be the harassment of others regarding a protected class.