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<DIV><FONT size=2><STRONG><FONT size=5>The Ground Zero mosque must be
built<BR></FONT></STRONG>
<P><FONT size=-1>By Kathleen Parker<BR>Wednesday, August 18, 2010; A15
<EM>Washington Post</EM><BR></FONT></P>
<P></P>
<P>It is hard to imagine that anything has gone unsaid about the so-called
Ground Zero mosque, but an important point seems to be missing. </P>
<P>The mosque should be built <I>precisely</I> because we don't like the idea
very much. We don't need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.
</P>
<P>This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque,
principally that there's no law against it. Precluding any such law, we let
people worship when and where they please. That it hurts some people's feelings
is, well, irrelevant in a nation of laws. And, really, don't we want to keep it
that way? </P>
<P>Confession: I would prefer that the mosque not be built so close to the
ground where nearly 3,000 innocent souls perished. That's my personal feeling,
especially as I imagine the suffering of so many families whose loved ones died
in the conflagration. </P>
<P>But why do so many Americans feel this way? The answer is inherent in the
question. Feeling is emotion, which isn't necessarily bad, but it bears
watching. </P>
<P>Reason tells us something else: The Muslims who want to build this mosque
didn't fly airplanes into skyscrapers. They don't support terrorism. By what
understanding do we assign guilt to all for the actions of a relative few? </P>
<P>Even so, as others have noted, civilized people and nations are careful to
avoid trespassing on the sorrow, suffering and sacrifice we associate with
hallowed grounds. As <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/12/AR2010081204996.html"
target="">Charles Krauthammer pointed out</A>, Pope John Paul II ordered
Carmelite nuns to abandon a convent they had established at Auschwitz, among
other examples. </P>
<P>We would like to think that others would be as respectful of our own horrors.
And yet, we should beware what we demand lest others demand the same of us.
Count the number of times we've heard "sensitivity" invoked the past several
days. Muslims should be more sensitive to the families of those who perished,
we've heard repeatedly. Even the <A
href="http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5820_32.htm"
target="">Anti-Defamation League</A>, defender of religious freedom, urged the
mosque's leaders to situate the building farther from Ground Zero -- out of
sensitivity. </P>
<P>Many couldn't agree more, and yet it goes without saying -- even if <A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081304357.html"
target="">President Obama</A> felt it necessary to state -- that American
Muslims have the same right as any other citizens to practice their religion and
to build on private property. </P>
<P>Some might wish that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is behind the proposal, were
more sensitive, though opinions are mixed. Others have argued that a moderate
Muslim such as Rauf is just the sort of person we hope will help influence a
more-moderate Islam. Might an Islamic center near the spot where the religion's
worst adherents slaughtered thousands, fellow Muslims among them, be useful to
that end? </P>
<P>These are all reasonable arguments. But the more compelling point is that
mosque opponents may lose by winning. Radical Muslims have set cities afire
because their feelings were hurt. When a Muslim murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh
in Amsterdam, it was because his feelings were hurt. Ditto the Muslims who
rioted about cartoons depicting the image of Muhammad and sent frightened
doodlers into hiding. </P>
<P>The idea that one should never have one's feelings hurt -- and the violent
means to which some will resort in the protection of their own self-regard --
has done harm rivaling evil. It isn't a stretch to say that the greatest threat
to free speech is, in fact, "sensitivity." </P>
<P>This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to
proceed, if that's what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being
tolerant. We can't insist that <I>our</I> freedom of speech allows us to draw
cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they
be more sensitive to our feelings. </P>
<P>More to the point, the tolerance we urge the Muslim world to embrace as we
exercise our right to free expression, and revel in the glory and the gift of
irreverence, is the same we must embrace when Muslims seek to express themselves
peacefully. </P>
<P>Nobody ever said freedom would be easy. We are challenged every day to
reconcile what is allowable and what is acceptable. Compromise, though sometimes
maddening, is part of the bargain. We let the Ku Klux Klan march, not because we
agree with them but because they have a right to display their hideous
ignorance. </P>
<P>Ultimately, when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of
speech or religious belief -- or disbelief -- we all lose. </P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>______________________________________</FONT></DIV><FONT
size=2>
<DIV><BR>Wayne A. Fox<BR>1009 Karen Lane<BR>PO Box 9421<BR>Moscow, ID
83843</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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