If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably seen any number of news pieces devoted to the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” being built in New York City.
First of all, let’s clear a few things up right at the outset. The planned renovation is actually a community center that happens to include, among other things, a mosque. In fact, the building is already being used as overflow for a local mosque, with little to no outcry from the community.
Second, you might think after hearing all this fearful moaning and groaning, that the Islamic cultural center is being proposed as an alternative to a memorial, or that it is being built atop the location where the towers once stood. No, it is in fact at 45 Park Pl, several blocks north. As distances go this is admittedly not the farthest, but you may have noticed that real estate is kind of at a premium in Manhattan.
Finally, let’s all bear in mind one very important point: Muslims did not fly two planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. (An event that, for the record, I witnessed firsthand, staring out my dorm room window on 5th Avenue.) Terrorists backed by Al Qaeda and influenced by religious extremists did. Islamic extremists and the majority of Muslims have no more in common with each other than David Koresh has in common with the church down the street from me. (They seem very nice, and I have absolutely no fear that they are stockpiling weapons or planning a siege.)
Yet the refrain heard over and over from Democrats and Republicans is this–it’s ‘disrespectful.’ The majority of commenters are very clear to toe that line; as President Obama pointed out, the community center is well within their rights to renovate this building which is on commercially zoned, private land. To say otherwise would be a restriction of their right to practice their religion.
So instead we fall back on this term–respect. But what, in this scenario, does it really mean?
It means the same thing it always had when applied to minority religions by the majority: it means we want you to go away. It means, we have to grudingly accept your existence, in a theoretical way, but we don’t want to see it. We don’t want to hear about it. We want to sit here in our bubble where everyone believes just like us and we never have to hear our kids ask us questions like “Mommy, why does Sarah’s mom wear a scarf over her head?” or “Daddy, how come Jack worship a Goddess instead of God?” We certainly don’t want to find that we are asking ourselves similar questions, because that might require examining beliefs more deeply than because it’s what I grew up with. It’s what they told me in Sunday school. Because the answer to those questions requires a tricky moral balancing act; how to avoid demonizing people with whom we live and work and play (Well, honey, Sarah’s mommy is oppressed, and Jack is a going to burn in hell for all eternity and you mustn’t talk to him ever again) and still maintaining that the path you follow is the only correct one.
Admittedly, this is a problem that plagues monotheism more than polytheism. Many polytheistic cultures borrowed elements from others, and since there is no rule that their deity must be supreme, found it easier to tolerate the worship of others. Many modern polytheists in particular–including myself–seem to view religion as more of covenant. I hold a certain higher level of worship to the deities I am dedicated to because I have chosen to enter that pact with them. I do not expect that all others be held to the same standards, as each individual will have a relationship that is defined in its own way. Monotheism, however, generally plants a flag in the ground and proclaims My Path is the Only Path and All Shall Tread It. (Whether or not this was the original intent–and it can indeed be debated–the fact remains that the majority of dominant institutions take this stance now.)
So the fallback then, is respect. It’s disrespectful to build a mosque ‘too close.’ It’s disrespectful to force good Christians to hear prayers of another faith. It’s disrespectful to publicly display decorations of another religion.
This is not respect. This is an attempt, pure and simple, to force people who are not like you to hide, and to publicly bend to your way of thinking. Sure if it’s okay if you worship another faith, as long as nobody knows about it. As long as you hide your faith away behind your closed doors, as long as you don’t dress distinctively or refuse to bow your head to pray to Jesus in school. As long as you don’t insist that all religions get equal representation from government institutions, or that no children be made to feel bad or evil in school when they are legally required to be there. As long as you don’t insist that the law cannot be used to hold one moral code above another while infringing on the rights of tax-paying citizens who believe differently.
This is not the mindset of all monotheists. It is not the mindset of all religious people regardless of faith.
But it is the mindset of those who are speaking the loudest.
So what are we going to do about it?
