Posted on 07/29/2010 11:04:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, has a piece in Human Events criticizing Sarah Palin for her opposition to building a mosque at Ground Zero. His argument seems to be that in guaranteeing freedom of religion, the First Amendment guarantees that all religions be treated identically. Therefore, argues Chapman, if you would allow evangelical Christians to build a church near Ground Zero, you must allow Muslims to build their mosque and community center—otherwise you are guilty of employing a double standard.
But the double standard only applies if you are dealing with two equivalent individuals or groups. You’re not guilty of using a double standard if you give the keys to your car to your sixteen-year-old child but not to your six-year-old. Likewise, if you support your own children but refuse to support your neighbor’s children, no one will accuse you of employing a double standard. In both these examples the two groupings are similar in many ways (your children, your neighbor’s children) but are different in crucial ways.
One way to avoid the double standard in regard to Islam is simply to declare that Islam is a political ideology, not a religion, and therefore not protected by the freedom of religion clause. For example, Geert Wilders has claimed that “Islam is not a religion” but a totalitarian ideology and therefore “the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam.” Moorthy Muthuswamy takes a similar tack in his book Defeating Political Islam. Islam, he maintains, is basically a political ideology. Likewise, Gregory Davis, the author of Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World argues that we need to reorient our thinking about Islam: “The first task of the West must be to reclassify Islam as a political system with religious aspects, rather than a religion with political aspects.” “How do you solve a problem like Sharia?” asks Mark Steyn in a playful paraphrase of the Broadway song. The simple answer is you reclassify Islam as a political organization.
But for hundreds of years Islam has been thought of as a religion—one of the world’s “great” religions according to most history books. While it’s undoubtedly true that many Islamic leaders cynically use religion as a cover for political ambitions, it’s also certainly true that many Muslims feel that in practicing Islam they are being obedient to God’s commands. For this and a number of other reasons it would be difficult to make a case that Islam is not in any sense a religion.
If Islam is treated as a religion and is therefore protected by the free exercise clause, what then? The First Amendment has never been interpreted to give people the freedom to do whatever they want just as long as they do it in the name of religion. In the late 19th century, Congress outlawed the Mormon practice of polygamy, and when the Mormons appealed the law, the Supreme Court upheld the ban. The Congress did, in fact, prohibit the free exercise of one particular Mormon custom. Congress would certainly also have the power to prohibit the free exercise of many Islamic customs, laws, and obligations that are in flagrant violation of federal laws. Crimes such as polygamy, underage marriages, stoning and whippings, honor killings and the murder of apostates are covered by existing laws. But there are other, more ambiguous areas where the free exercise of Islam might be curtailed for reasons of security. Should the wearing of the burqa be banned? Should mosques and Muslim schools be monitored for seditious activities? Should Friday sermons be pre-approved by government officials?
There are two main problems here. One problem is that there so many questionable aspects to Islamic teachings that mosques, madrassas and Islamic centers would require extensive, round-the-clock monitoring and supervision. This, in turn, would generate innumerable protests and civil rights lawsuits, and, most probably, increased media sympathy for Islam. Handled the wrong way, a tough crackdown could backfire and end up helping rather than hindering the spread of Islam.
The other problem is that such an approach sets up a slippery slope for restricting the religious freedoms of Jews, Christians, Buddhists and others. Any attempt to ban the burqa will elicit demands that nuns be forbidden to wear habits. Likewise, it will be argued that if Muslims can’t wear distinctive garb, Christians shouldn’t be allowed to wear crosses, and Jews shouldn’t be allowed to display the Star of David. And if you’re going to monitor mosques and madrassas for un-American activities, why not monitor churches, homeschools and Christian schools, as well? Granting the government sweeping supervisory powers over Islam might provide it with just the leverage it needs to haul Pastor Jones off to jail the next time he says the wrong thing about gay marriage.
It shouldn’t work that way, of course: people ought to be able to make distinctions. It ought to be obvious that Christianity poses far less of a threat to our society than does Islam. But thanks to thirty years of multicultural indoctrination, many Americans have succumbed to the notion that all groups no matter how different, must be treated the same. Thus Steve Chapman observes that even if Islam were “inherently violent and totalitarian” it would still merit the full protection of the First Amendment.
Since it’s inception 1300 years ago, Islamists have made it
a practice to build mosques at the most sensitive or sacred
site of the conquest. For example just near the wailing wall
in Israel there stands a mosque. In India the moslems have built mosques using the decorative stones from the destroyed temples.
The proposed mosque near Ground Zero is another monument to
what the muslims consider a victory over Western capitalism.
It’s not uncommon for neighborhoods to dictate zoning and types of architecture and types of use, even dictating types of stones and colors. McDonalds has even been outlawed where it would cheapen the neighborhood. What ever happened to utterly shameful as a basis for public officials to make a decision?
It ought to be obvious that Christianity poses far less of a threat to our society than does Islam.
The establishment sees it the opposite.
And how about when each of our religions is deemed just a political ideology. From there, it's a "dangerous" ideology, etc.
Oh, joy.
Why does it seem so many people are intent on destroying our Constitutional protections in the name of "saving America"?
"And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner propos’d, and persons appointed to receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon receiv’d to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad, about the size of Westminster Hall; and the work was carried on with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism [i.e., Islam] to us, he would find a pulpit at his service."
It ought to be obvious that Christianity poses far less of a threat to our society than does Islam.
Hence the attacks on christianity.
Wasn't it some luminary that said the constitution is not a suicide pact? People fighting back against the PC and Islamist hoards are not intent on destroying our constitutional protections. It is the Islamists that are out to destroy constitutional protections. They claim constitutional protections at every turn. These protections are part of a system that they openly despise, work to subvert and ultimately destroy. Yet you rush to their defense, claiming the constitution protects their right to destroy the constitution. You can't see the perversity of your thought process? Seriously?
Do you think CAIR gives a damn about the constitution? Do you think they wouldn't saw your head off with a rusty knife rather than give you constitutional protections if they had the power to do so? How does bending over backwards to protect and extend rights to a hostile force bent on destroying constitutional principles protect constitutional principles again? The answer is, of course, that it doesn't. And it takes a brain full of mush to think otherwise.
Sheer idiocy. It is clear to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together that islam is not a religion, that it differs radically from anything else tried as a religion, that the ways in which it differs are blindingly clear and undisputable, and that those differences completely disqualifies it from being any kind of religion. It may qualify as ritualized genocide, superstition or any dozen other pre-civilization ailments, but not as religion.
Plague, maybe.
The establishment is muslim. There will be only one winning side. One dies, the other survives. Trying to straddle that fence will get tender parts of you in a well-deserved difficulty.
Let's do this for our liberal neighbors.
Let's just pass the dhimmi laws and subjugate them ourselves, saving our 'Rat friends the trouble of importing lots of Moslems to do the oppression and abuse.
They've given up the principles on this thing; at least we can be marginally kinder to them than the Moslem emirs would. And we'll use their jiziya tax to pay off the national debt.
True, “Islam…is basically a political ideology.”
This is a fact just as Marxism, Leninism, Communism and Nazism is a military and quasi-governmental ideology, although many try to describe or squeeze Islam into a theology, it is not!
Islam is first and foremost a military and quasi-governmental movement, not a religion; the faith aspects of this fraud are for public consumption and control.
Second, Islam relies upon waging war to provide a nationalistic direction of their unified operations which happens to originate in and from Saudi Arabia followed by a number of other key states; start there and Islam will be stopped.
Thomas Jefferson did not own a Koran to idolize an Eastern belief, he owned it to comprehend their precepts, motivation and learn what this vile form of government is all about and to crush it. The founding fathers of the United States were well aware of such governments throughout history, and made it clear that a Church run State is the embodiment of such evil; Islam is such an iniquity no matter how it is presented or justified!
</sarc>
How does bending over backwards to protect and extend rights to a hostile force bent on destroying constitutional principles protect constitutional principles again?
You seem quite hostile to constitutional principles. The Founding Fathers recognized the need to remain true to them even in the face of enemies lest they become meaningless.
Are you pro-Islam, just hope to defeat Christianity and other religions...or is it the Constitution itself that you want defeated?
Then you have outlined an even easier path for CAIR. In fact, it’s a path to even more power. You have just said that “...shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...” doesn’t apply to Islam.
So Christianity can’t be declared the national religion, and there’s no way Congress could respect the establishment of the Koran, but Al-Shari’ah is fine because “it’s just a political ideology” and wouldn’t be establishing a theocracy.
Wow. Scary.
How about we just say “no” to the mosque because we are at war with radical Islam?
Go back to your seance and try again; you're channeling the wrong spirit...that's not my man Tommy J.
Look at what he wrote in his autobiography in 1821 about the creation of his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.
And they are radical Islamists? If we're going to keep our Constitution strong, then I say you have every right to go through due process to try to prove they don't have the right to build it.
First, has this group denounced the 9/11 attacks and the Islamists use of violence and terrorism worldwide? If they have not, no mosque. It is that easy.
Second, and most importantly, I believe if you do not accept the founding principles of this nation as inviolate, you can be expelled from this nation....no ifs ands or buts.
Excellent post.
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