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Tuesday, August 24. 2010

Two Strip Clubs, A Peep Show and an Islamic Center ...

Sounds like a good reason to visit New York City!

Anyone who has read this blog over the years, or at least knows me, also knows I have no love of religion. One of my favorite phrases: Religion is the root of all evil.

In recent years I’ve stopped saying that as much since greed has proven to be a big source of evil, but religion, especially the three that worship the god of Abraham, tend to breed, endorse, encourage and participate in much evil and have done so for millennia. But those religions aren’t the root of all evil.

Years ago, when in college, I had a discussion with a fellow student who told me in no uncertain terms Catholics aren’t Christians. Really? The original Christian denomination? Funny how definitions are left open to interpretation when it comes to religion.

This woman knew this because her Pastor told her it was so. At the time I was a pretty confirmed atheist, but having been brought up in a very Catholic household, I was a bit offended. Not to mention, the woman’s opinion just flew in the face of historical fact. But facts don’t matter as the previous presidential administration pointed out years ago.

In an October 17, 2004 article for The New York Times Magazine, writer Ron Suskind interviewed several Bush Administration officials, one of whom — un-named — told Suskind, he (Suskind), and people like him, were in the “reality based community” that thinks solving the world’s problems comes from “… judicious study of discernible reality.” The Bush aide went on to say, “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Sadly, that has been the view of many Americans for many, many years. Decades, centuries now. Before we became a nation, our predecessors burned women to death because they were suspected of being witches.

In 1787 our forefathers ratified the U.S. Constitution. Two years later James Madison introduced the Bill of Rights, which were ratified in 1791. The first of those ten amendments states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In 1802, when Thomas Jefferson was president, he wrote the now famous — or infamous — phrase, contained in this paragraph from his letter to the Baptists of Danbury, CT: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their ‘legislature’ should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
 Italics are mine.

The Supreme Court has ratified that view in several opinions over the two-plus centuries our nation has had a Constitution. And yet — and this boggles the mind — there are those who still believe we live in a religious state, one that adheres to Christianity in particular. People use all sorts of half-truths and untruths to support that lie. But that’s really not the point here.

Religious freedom, for many Americans, only applies to those who believe somewhat the same as they believe. In other words, if you’re not an adherent of an excepted Christian denomination, then your religious freedoms are limited. For some, like that fellow student years ago, Catholicism isn’t acceptable.

The First Amendment says we are free from any particular religion and we can worship — or not worship — as we choose.
 Personally, if all religions were banned … eh, I wouldn’t much care.

But not really. While the government cannot do anything to limit your right to worship or not worship as you choose, your fellow citizens can and will do plenty if you do try to worship differently than they do. Like building an Islamic community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.

The insanity whipped up by those who oppose the center, which will have a basketball court and bookstore, as well as a prayer center, boggles the senses. This is in New York City no less, the greatest melting pot of cultures in this big nation of melting pots.

Mainly, it’s the demagogues on the right who are whipping up this anti-Semitism: Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and host of other radio crazies and their co-conspirators in the Republican Party, like House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Even Karen Hughes, who had been President Bush’s point person in winning over the hearts and minds of the Islamic World, has come out in opposition to the center. And, this is what makes this ironic and possibly funny: Hughes undertook that task with the Imam who is going to build the Islamic Center at 51 Park Place that she now opposes.

For them, it’s all about stirring up their political base, in particular, the Tea Party crowd. With primaries in full swing and the mid term elections coming up in a little more than two months, making sure the base of the party remains incensed at something will go a long way to ensure these people will show up at the polls.

President Obama was chastised, by the overly vocal opponents of the Islamic Center, for invoking the First Amendment in defense of the people who wish to build the center at a site that used to be a Burlington Coat Factory. Oddly enough, those opposing the center are the same people who claim to defend the Constitution when opposing the judicial nominations of Democratic presidents. But let’s not call them hypocrites — yeah, why the Hell not. They are hypocrites, especially Karen Hughes.
 If the Democrats had a backbone, they would be more vocal in their support of the First Amendment, embrace religious pluralism and let every Muslim capable of voting know the Democrats are the real “Big Tent” party and welcome people of all faiths — or no faith — into their party; that their proposed community center in Lower Manhattan is okay with them as are all the mosques facing opposition around the country, like in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
 But let’s not get off on that tangent. The Democratic Party is so wimpy … eh … sigh …

For the demagogues on the Right, the Islamic Center isn’t welcome so close to the “Hallowed Ground” known as “Ground Zero,” although the push carts featuring Middle Eastern food are okay, as are strip clubs and peep shows.
 According to Nicolaus Mills in an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, the center would be one of the few bright spots in that neighborhood, which has a variety of shops, fast food restaurants — plus two strip clubs and an adult store with a peep show. Wow! Two strip clubs and a peep show!

Everyone on the right, it seems, is opposed to the Islamic Center — until Monday, when Ron Paul, the one Republican to oppose Bush’s war in Iraq, the man who bucked his party’s line on several occasions while a congressman, came out in support of the Islamic Center.

According to Paul, who wrote an opinion piece on His Website, the anti-Muslim hatred has come from a very select group, “… the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it. They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars …”

It’s worth reading the entire piece. Finally, a voice of sanity in this whole debate. And why did the Democrats leave it to a Republican to make these points? They actually didn’t, but it is more credible coming from someone on the Right, especially Ron Paul, considered the father of the Tea Party movement.

Ron Paul reminds us that one of our most cherished ideals, one of our core values, is religious pluralism and tolerance. We put it in the very first amendment to the Constitution; it leads the Bill of Rights. President Obama said as much, as did other Democrats and people on the Left, but Ron Paul got more notice because he is on the Right.

Ron Paul is the true “maverick” in Congress. I may oppose him on just about every other issue, but on this one the Texas Congressman gets my endorsement.

Two strip clubs and a peep show … sounds like a fun neighborhood.

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 12:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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