The same foolish and false interpretation of the First Amendmentthat protects a project like the Ground Zero mosque also protectsthe planned burning of the Koran. Â
"In a strange way I'm here to defend his right to dothat," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday,referring to Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who intends to burncopies of the Koran on September 11. "I happen to think that it isdistasteful. I don't think he would like it if somebody burnt abook that in his religion he thinks is holy. But the FirstAmendment protects everybody, and you can't say that we're going toapply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are inagreement."
Such pitiful reliance upon mindless cliché and bogus FirstAmendment jurisprudence renders public officials useless in theface of dangerous stupidity. The truth is that the First Amendmentprotects neither the Ground Zero mosque nor Jones's burning ofcopies of the Koran. How do we know this? Because under the realFirst Amendment, the one written by the Founding Fathers, localcommunities within states were perfectly free to pass lawsprohibiting the construction of particular religious buildings orpass laws that banned book burnings.
Six of the thirteen states that signed the Constitutionran established churches. It is a historical fact that theFirst Amendment was written not to suppress those state churchesbut to protect them. Those six states would have never signed theConstitution otherwise. They insisted on the language, "Congressshall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, orprohibiting the free exercise thereof," to make clear that thefederal government had no right to establish its own religion anddisestablish theirs. The wall of separation in theConstitution is not between government and religion but between thefederal government and the states' religious activities.
The notion that the First Amendment requires individualstates to treat all religious believers equally was invented out ofthin air by judicial activists. For decades after the Constitutionwas written, several states baldly preferred one religion overanother. As author M. Stanton Evans has written, "there remained anetwork of religious requirements for public office -- typically,that one be a professing Christian of orthodox persuasion. Suchrequirements existed in New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania,Maryland, Georgia and the Carolinas. For example, the state ofVermont, one of the more liberal states of the era (admitted to theUnion in 1791) required the following oath of office: 'I do believein one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the rewarderof the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledgethe Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divineinspiration and own and profess the Protestantreligion.'"
The rejection of the real Constitution for the phony"living" one explains today's tyranny of the minority. That tyrannyhas assumed ironically divergent forms in recent days. In New YorkCity, a majority stands aghast as a group of Muslims tries to builda mosque within blocks of the World Trade Center ruins. In Florida,the majority stands appalled but idle before the pastor of a tinychurch who launches an "International Burn-a-Koran Day." Bothincidents are, in varying degrees, acts of gross and pointlessincivility that do not truly enjoyconstitutional protections, but all public officials can mumble inthe face of them is the cliché du jour that Americans have a "rightto be wrong."
The planned burning of copies of the Koran is agratuitously stupid and ugly act, one which will mirror radicalIslam's violence not illuminate it. But it is also dumb for theU.S. government to elevate the aberrant event's significance. Whyare Hillary Clinton and company even talking about it? Jones is thepastor of a church with 50 members. He should be ignored.Instead, the Obama administration and the media, both desperatelylooking around for evidence of "Islamophobia," continue to buildhim up, thereby prolonging an Islamic outcry that will endangerU.S. troops.
Letter to the Editor
George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.
Islam is a cancer in America.
I find it interesting that much is being made of this "burn theKoran" day but where was the outrage from leaders and others whenour military was ordered to burn the Bible in Afghanistan. Theywere taken away from the Christian soldiers and burned so that theMuslim's wouldn't be offended or evangelized too. Nothing much saidabout it but it's clear on many web sites that it happened. Evenreported by CNN (communist news network). Check out the internetsites on it. This is clearly to inflame and start something betweenthe O's administration and his brother Islamic's. That's clearenough evidence to me that Obama IS a Muslim. He sides with them atevery venue but won't stick up for his own Christian Nation.
I completely agree that when it comes to certain people beingPC, and subsequently more tolerant of say, burning bibles, butintolerant for burning Korans--it is clear that those particularpeople are hypocrites (regardless of if they are trying to pleasethe minority). I do see a few more things however...for instance,when it comes to Christians versus Muslims, in this day and age, weare more likely to offend someone we are currently at war with-- ifwe offend Muslims. On the other hand, if we offend Christians,there isn't an apparent increased threat of violence towards oursoldiers or citizens. So, because we are at war with Muslimnations, it is true that burning the Koran is going to have a muchmore negative impact on our country and soldiers (potentially) thanburning the Bible would. Does this mean that is one is more rightor wrong to burn? Not at all, both are freedoms of expression, butit does point out a clear relationship of which act will cause moreharm than good.
Also, Obama has every right to be a Muslim, just as you do, or Ido. We do have that right, and it is a fundamental rightrepresented by the First Ammendment.
For anyone to compare burning a Koran, to building a mosque,involves a lack of reason. It is true, that both are freedoms ofexpression and/or religion perhaps. That I am not disputing. Mypoint is that one act is meant to alienate, and demonstrate hatredand disrespect to Muslims. The other act, is meant to bring Muslimstogether to a communal place of worship and prayer. A truecomparison would be to say that building a church is the same asbuilding a mosque (both are places of worship/prayer--regardless ofwhether we belong to one religion or the other). Another truecomparison would be that burning a Bible is the same as burning aKoran. Both are demonstrations of hatred and intolerance towardsthe religion represented by that book.If we do not allow everyone to practice their religion equally(within the bounds of the law), then we are not protecting thatfreedom of religion. If Christians are allowed to build a churchnear ground zero, or anywhere for that matter, then Muslims shouldbe allowed the same right. People that disagree with that "equallyapplied freedom" are generally themselves intolerant of the otherreligion (in this case Islamic religion). We must leave bias out ofthis, and think about our own rights. What if a group of Christianswere told that they were not allowed to build a church in a mostlymuslim neighborhood because it may offend people? I'd say, too bad!If there are mosques in that neighborhood, and Christians need aplace of worship as well, then I'd hope fairness would prevail andallow the church to be built. Its hard for some people to imaginethis if the tables were turned--but it is necessary to demonstratethat the law and freedoms apply to everyone equally.Peace and love to you all!
-Lagius
"For anyone to compare burning a Koran, to building a mosque,involves a lack of reason."I agree. To keep the comparison equal, maybe he should considerburning a koran on a site where 3,000 muslims were killed.
Lagiusmeatius:
Generally agree with your reasoning/sentiments. But I've been anon-theist for a long time, and evermore convinced that "religious"moralizing, based as it is in god(s)' pronouncements about what'sabsolutely right and wrong, is the wellspring of most warfare.
So......my knee-jerk reaction to the Koran-burning stuff is tosay "Good start! Now let's throw tons of Bibles and Torahs andTalmuds into the fire as well." The Vedic Scriptures? Hmm. Yeah,probably those too, although they're at least more "humbling" andcooperation-facilitative than the aforementioned.
Oh, well.
Ralph, I totally agree with you regarding religion. Religion,particularly the theistic religions are one of the leading causesof war in this world. There is no doubt in my mind that getting ridof theistic religions and instead focusing on common sense and justlove in general would reduce war in this world. Religion hasbrought on so much persecution and needless death...from the timeof the Hebrew slaves, to the Crusades, to holy wars going ontoday...theistic religion has been the cause of so much death anddestruction in the world--even though both parties believe in"God", it never ends...Peace and love to you Ralph!
"...but for the wrong reason",
Again where is your reasoning in your argument. Are we to neverallow anyone to build a mosque or church where death has occurred?People die everyday, but this never stops anyone, and hasn'tbefore. Why all of a sudden do we say, "That's too close to wherepeople died! You can't build a place of worship or prayer there! "It's complete non-sense to think that. Would 1 mile away be "goodenough", how about 10 miles? 100 miles? Do you see my point here?It shouldn't matter how close it is to some disaster that happenedin the past. If we are saying that they can't build it because itwas Muslim terrorists that caused those deaths, then you areimplying that all Muslims are terrorists! Unless you have someother line of logical reasoning you'd like to try? That would be abig mistake...as well its presuming that we can prove that Muslimswere indeed the cause of the 9/11 tragedy, which we can'tprove--nor does it matter if they did or didn't regarding thisissue. Remember that the black boxes for that flight were neverfound, so we can never know what happened in that cockpit or whowas in it. That's a different argument for a different time.Staying on track here, it doesn't matter if they build it a mileaway or a hundred miles away...someone would still complain. Aswell, who should say, "It has to be at least this far away fromground zero..." Which goes to show that it has nothing to do withwhat people "should" do...rather there is another underlying agendahere.
Peace and love to you all,-Lagius
So which religions were Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot adhering towhen they murdered tens of millions of their countrymen?
Mahommed was a vicious warlord who invented a religiousphilosophy to justify his rampages and to keep his followers inline. He was not a religious person who somehow found himself incharge of a government. The Crusades were a reaction to an invasionby adherents to the politico-religious system called Islam.
Far more people have been killed by political systems than byreligions, though it is true that political leaders have oftenclaimed divine support for their actions, as did medieval Europeankings, though Christ never taught anything that would support sucha position.
There is a great deal of muddy thinking about religion by thosewithout religious beliefs.
Religion has not brought slavery or hatred or war. That wasbrought on by evil fanatics who manipulate anything, includingreligion, for their hateful selfish purposes. If you read the Bibleor most religious documents you would find a lot of enlightenment.Also, if you would attend a sermon every now and then, especially aChristian one. Advocating burning of any book is proposed only byan ignorant person. Ignorance and arrogance are closely linked andyou are a great example in placing yourself so high above othersbecause you are a "non" theist as you so dumbly put it, inventing aword for your own agrandizement. Any other words to describeyourself and put anyone else down?
Yes, how quickly men forget that the world enjoyed a briefreligion - free Utopia under the kindly thumb of Joe Stalin.
Read Full Article »