By Adelle M. Banks
c. 2010 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS) What started as a local zoning debate about an Islamic center near Ground Zero, and then morphed into a fight over religious expression, has now turned into an election-year political brawl.
Caught in the middle of the rancorous partisan fight are American Muslims, whose own voices have been drowned out by politicians on both the left and the right.
“In a fundamental sense, this is not a conversation about Muslims,”
said Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This is a conversation in which the Muslims are being used as the football with which to play the game of competing visions of America.”
President Obama waded into the debate on Friday (Aug. 13) when he hailed America’s “unshakeable” commitment to religious freedom during a White House dinner to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,”
Obama said. “And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”
Perhaps sensing the political storm clouds that were gathering, Obama said Saturday that he would not “comment on the wisdom” of whether to build near Ground Zero, which the night before he had called “hallowed ground.”
Republicans, however, pounced. Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican responsible for adding GOP Senate seats in the November elections, said Obama “seems to be disconnected from the mainstream of America” and called his remarks “unwise.” The top Republican in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner, called them “deeply troubling.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat whose district includes the site of the proposed Cordoba House in lower Manhattan, fired back on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It is only insensitive if you regard Islam as the culprit as opposed to al-Qaida as the culprit,” Nadler said Sunday. “We were not attacked by all Muslims.”
GOP luminaries like former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have already promised to make the issue one for the voting booths in November, with Gingrich telling The New York Times that Obama was “pandering to radical Islam.”
According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 54 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans oppose the New York mosque project. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody predicted the issue will have legs in 2010 and beyond.
“This situation all by itself has the potential to make President Obama a one-term president,” he wrote Monday (Aug. 16) on his “Brody File” blog. “This latest mosque move may be the fatal blow.”
Shahed Amanullah, founder of altmuslim.com, a popular Muslim website, agreed that the fight could influence some voters this fall — “people are still going to be drunk on this issue,” he said — but probably not beyond that.
“We’re definitely far enough from 2012 where the dust will have settled,” Amanullah predicted.
Lost in the debate, Amanullah said, is the interfaith bridge-building that the Cordoba House once hoped to foster, in part because of anti-Muslim vitriol that he said is worse than immediately after 9/11.
“The people that are being ostracized, I think, right now are the people that are in the middle, who feel that Muslims belong in America but have misgivings (about the center),” he said. “Those people are …
caught in the crossfire because the opposition is being led by people who, in my personal opinion, really don’t believe that Muslims belong in America.”
Also forgotten, said UNC’s Safi, is the fact that the proposed building near Ground Zero is not just a mosque, but a community center that would include a swimming pool and a wedding hall in addition to a place for prayer.
“It’s as American as megachurches,” he said. “It’s as American as Jewish community centers.”
Melissa Rogers, an expert on church-state relations who has praised New York officials for supporting “a linchpin of the American tradition of religious liberty,” said the overall debate could send the wrong message to Muslims, both at home and abroad.
A planned protest at a Florida church to burn copies of the Quran on the 9/11 anniversary can only make things worse, she said.
“I do think that there’s a real danger that Muslims receive the message that they are second-class citizens and that their rights have an asterisk beside them, if you will,” said Rogers, director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs.
Rogers hopes grass-roots Americans, including religious leaders, can help lead the discussion above the political fray.
“Americans have an important role in this debate,” she said. “It goes to our core values and we should talk about it and we should definitely try to bring more light than heat to the issue, no matter what the politicians are doing.”
Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted August 17, 2010 at 12:07 pm
The Republicans will use anyone or anything to try and win in Nov. This time it is the Mosque in NYC. They are pros at jumping in and attacking our President in every way they can. What is hard to understand is the way people follow them like sheep, in many places.
posted August 17, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Why do we pretend we’re surprised with Right Wing bigotry? The Republicans had to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept the outcome of the civil rights movement. They claim their anti-immigration posture is about “respecting the letter of the law”, and then they proclaim they want new laws rendering babies born to immigrants as non-citizens. Yes, they hate Muslims, just as the far Right has hated Jews and Catholics and Italians in the past.
Why are we hesitant to point out the Right’s longstanding tactic of using hatred against a minority as a passion-building tactic to get White Christian voters excited?
posted August 17, 2010 at 11:48 pm
“GOP luminaries like former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich”
One is a ditz who wasn’t qualified to be Vice President by miles but draws big Republican crowds and the other is a serial philanderer who claims to be “pro-family”. But they are Republican luminaries. Which goes to show how low the Republicans have sunk.
Now what will Christian leaders do? I’m guessing most will scurry for the sidelines or worse.
I am glad President Obama had the courage to do what was right even though it was unpopular.
posted August 18, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Obama like any other politician does what the money holding backers tell him to do. Just as many philanders and ditz on both sides there is enough to go around. as long as politicians make it a war there will be no unity and house divided will not stand.
posted August 19, 2010 at 4:52 am
what’s missing is a bit of historionic preshadowing:
in many years time, the arguments about tolerance/intolerance will be forgotten. what will be remembered is that a group of people crashed a plane into a big building killing thousands. the choice is whether to add to that the historical fact that members of that group then built nearby a place of worship (by then it will or will not include a library and community center – who knows, it may even have a sharia bank inside called twin towers banking) to comemorate their deed (positive or negative connotations in the eyes of the beholder).
it’s like calling pius-12 a saint: who cares?! only in many centuries time will it be said that the catholic church had nothing to do with the hollocaust – how could they have: their representative at the time was “a saint”…
posted August 19, 2010 at 9:37 am
“members of that group”? Fundamentalist Muslims? I understand the people wanting to build the mosque are definitely not fundamentalists.
Your logic is like condemning all Christians for Timothy McVeigh. It makes no sense.
Well, you do take the long view of history all right and you may be right about Pius-12.
posted August 19, 2010 at 7:23 pm
What history will tell you in the future is that Americas first black President stood up for what his country has always stood for when one leading political party of extremists tried to take it away.
posted August 20, 2010 at 6:03 pm
nnmns how do you know what is in the hearts of the Muslims involved, how do you know if they will ultimately control what is done in the facility, how do you know who is backing this move? You don’t.
H22 black or not Obama does not stand for what this country has always stood for read your history. You are making an emotional statement that facts do not support.
posted August 20, 2010 at 6:59 pm
President Obama believes that we have “Freedom of Religion”, everyone else does too, including I would hope you Ck. What is it that you think he doesn’t stand with our country about?
posted August 20, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Obama believes as some other liberals that we have freedom religion as long as it has nothing to do with Christ or the bible or the Christian heritage of this country.
posted August 21, 2010 at 1:26 pm
That makes no sense ck. I know there are all manner of crazy forwards on line being sent around with no authority in them. Don’t believe lies without checking them out with knowledgable people that aren’t extremists.
posted August 22, 2010 at 1:52 pm
There’s an interesting article in the New York Times online today. Anne Barnard wrote it: For Imam in Muslim Center Furor, a Hard Balancing Act.
posted August 23, 2010 at 10:22 am
Below are four quotes from the blog post:
What Would Our Founding Fathers Say About the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’?
Parvez AhmedU.S. Fulbright Scholar and Associate Professor at University of North Florida
Posted: August 23, 2010 05:52 AM
Read the entire blog at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/parvez-ahmed/what-will-our-founding-fa_b_686742.html
“George Washington, in a letter to the Jews of Rhode Island, affirmed the essential nature of America, “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance — but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship.” But today we have government officials openly giving sanction to bigotry.”
“In 1784, George Washington, seeking to hire craftsman for Mount Vernon, said, “If they are good workmen, they may be of Assia [sic], Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans [Muslims], Jews, or Christian of any Sect — or they may be Atheists.” Thus the foundation of America was based on meritocracy. On merits, the Park51 project has cleared all hurdles. No other consideration should stop the project from moving forward.”
“Ben Franklin wrote in his autobiography, “[S]o that even if the Mufti [Imam] of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.” Whereas Franklin was welcoming of foreign imams, today an insidious propaganda has opened up against a stalwart American imam.”
“Thomas Jefferson, who owned and read a copy of the Quran, wrote in 1816, “The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.” Today government officials are dictating where private citizens should erect their houses of worship.”
posted August 23, 2010 at 11:38 am
Thanks for the article Rev. Rob. Did you read the one I posted? Intelligent words and explanations are like a cool breeze on a hot day, aren’t they? If the extremists on both sides would just slow down and try to find some peace in all of this uproar they would be a healthier people.
posted August 23, 2010 at 2:57 pm
That type of tolerance was birthed by Christians, imperfect Christians and deists but Christians and deists. Go to Iran, Iraq, China or Russia and try that, Christians were tolerant to a fault and now we see the fault.
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