GZM - 4

Howard Dean says that the Islamic cultural center should be built somewhere else. He is not jumping on the bandwagon with the Gingrich-Palin alarmist crowd. He simple says that the Muslim planners' intent is good, but it is also an opportunity to show some flexibility in respect for the feelings of those who lost loved ones in 9/11. He says their cause of promoting understanding would be better served by doing that. In this, he seems to be taking the same position as Obama, who strongly affirmed their right to build there but left open the question of whether it was wise.

If this had not been blown out of proportion, I would agree with them. In fact, that was my first position on it, as I stated in my first blog on the subject. However, once the howlers have started their pumped up scare tactics, for them to move the project now would seem to be letting the Gingriches win. And that would be very bad.

This began as a question of sensitivity and possible accommodation to that sensitivity.

By now it has become a fight -- not about the first amendment, nor about whether they are terrorists or not. Nor is it even still a fight about whether the area is hallowed ground. Once it has been pointed out that there already is a Muslim prayer house within 80 feet of ground zero, and once the off-track betting parlor has been pointed out, and once the strippers have shown that where they take it all off is less than 2 blocks away -- well it seems that argument has lost its validity.

It is now a fight about whether we're going to let the "political pyromaniacs" determine the level of discourse in this country. So far, they've been winning; and the level of national discourse has sunk lower and lower.

It is time -- past time -- to elevate the debate to the real issues and to reason. This is the moment to stand up for that.

Ralph

Orly makes the others look sane

Orly Taitz makes Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Sharon Angle look sane. Well . . . there might be a little question about Sharon, in light of the blurb out today that 20 years ago she fulminated against the local high school football team's decision to wear black jerseys (to express their contriteness for having lost a prior game so badly).

Sharon was then campaigning for the school board, and she whipped up some frenzy among devil-fearing folks by saying that the color black represented the devil and evil, and high school football players shouldn't be wearing it. The school caved in, confiscated the jerseys, which the players had paid for themselves.

But, hey, as Sharon now says, that was 20 years ago, and she doesn't even remember it.

Now Orly, on the other hand, never forgets about her obsession -- which is her contention that Obama was not born in the U.S. and is not a citizen. And she never gives in. She has been filing frivilous law suits all over the place, some on behalf of soldiers who don't want to go to Iraq and claim that they shouldn't have to obey orders from a commander in chief who isn't even an American citizen.

Ah, The Birthers. That's Orly's territory. I saw her interviewed on TV one morning. She's crazy. You cannot talk to her -- she just talks past the interviewer and doesn't answer questions, and she babbles on about birth certificates. The interviewer finally just terminated the interview in frustration.

One judge somewhere fined her $20,000 for filing frivilous lawsuits and consuming valuable court time with endless motions and shenanigans. She appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the fine. They turned her down. Now she says she wants to appeal that decision.

Question: To whom do you appeal a decision by the U. S. Supreme Court? Orly has some obscure statute that she says allows her to ask for reconsideration based on new evidence or misapplication of law. So she's asking for reconsideration, based on some video on the White House web site that shows Obama displaying his passport, showing all the stamps of the countries he has visited.

Orly says that she can tell from this video image that the passport is a fake. That's her new evidence.

Like I said, Orly Taitz is crazy. She makes Michele, Sarah, and Sharon look quite sane. But that ain't saying much.

Ralph

GZM -3: Republicans calling Newt out

Former Republican congressman turned TV commentator, Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, took on Newt Gingrich over the misnamed Ground Zero Mosque.

He denounced Newt's ignorant and inflammatory comments. Noting that Gingrich is trying to build a base for running for president, Joe said he himself is feeling more and more distant from his (Republican) party for this kind of pandering: "There are elements of our party that are marching through the fevered swamps of ideology."

Another commentator on the same program called Newt: "nothing more than a political pyromaniac."

Even Pat Buchanan -- yes, Pat Buchanan -- said Gingrich had gone too far in likening these moderate Muslims to Nazis.

When Pat Buchanan says you've gone too far off the rails of bigotry -- wow. Now all that's left is for the late night comedians to begin to skewer Newt. Once you make someone the butt of jokes, it's hard for him to move back into the serious limelight.

Ralph

Obama in campaign mode

Obama seems to be test-driving his stump speech for the fall campaign. It features a useful car metaphor. He refers to the Republicans having been in the driver's seat and running the car into the ditch. Now that the Democrats have finally got it back on the road and are ready to move forward, the Repubs are asking for the keys back. Don't give 'em to them. They don't know how to drive. They ran us into the ditch.

And then he caps it off with a clever word play. It's meaningless, of course, but of such are slogans made. It goes like this:

Have you ever noticed, when driving your car, that when you want to go forward you put it in "D." And when you want to go backward, you put it in "R."

The metaphor condenses a lot. That's what metaphors are for. Let's hope it catches on.

Ralph

Bigots bite the dust . . . sort of

Two loud-mouth conservative voices that we love to hate have been reined in just a bit.

1. The person with a PhD in physiology, who markets herself on talk radio as "Dr. Laura" and who dispenses putdowns and insults masquerading as "advice," got into trouble for saying the "n" word on air 11 times within 15 minutes. She was speaking to an African-American woman married to a white man and calling in to ask how to handle it when his family and friends make racial remarks in her presence. Non-doctor Laura went into a rant about how black people use the "n" word all the time, why can't white people use it? So she did, saying "nigger, nigger, nigger." Then she turned the tables on the caller, saying if she was that sensitive about race, she shouldn't have married outside her own race. My question to the woman would be: why did you call someone as insensitive as this person who calls herself Dr. Laura but is not a "doctor" in any sense of being a helping person.

Today, this professional insulter announced that she is ending her radio career to devote her time to writing her books. She denied that she was forced to resign. We all know how that works. It couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

2. Ann Coulter is another queen of insults, only she doesn't try to pass them off as advice. She clearly enjoys and profits from being snarky and mean, and her conservative audiences love it. She had been invited (hired, actually) to give the keynote speech for the conservative website WND at their "Taking Back America Conference."

Now, because she is also giving a talk to the gay Republican group GOProud, WND has disinvited (aka fired) Coulter, saying that their conservative ideals do not fit with the "unconservative agenda" of GOProud.

Coulter's response was: I'm just giving a speech to GOProud. I give lots of speeches to groups I don't endorse. I've even spoken at Harvard, she says. In other words, she's a mouth for hire -- no ideology involved. Just an entertainer. I've even heard that she parties with gay friends, even though her pubic persona is anti-gay. That woman just has no principles. She's just a materialist. Others might even call her less kind names that rhyme with a digging tool.

Two loudmouth bigots bite the dust . . . sort of; but don't think we've heard the last of their ilk.

Ralph

"Ground Zero Mosque" (GZM) - 2

OK, let's clear this up. The "Ground Zero Mosque" is neither at ground zero, nor is it a mosque. It is two blocks north and around a corner. Other buildings block the view so it cannot be seen from ground zero, nor can you see GZ from it. Someone put up a video of the 2+ minute walk from GZ to the building site. Within seconds, you've completely lost any sense of a space and you're on what looks like a typical sort of grungy street in lower Manhattan.

Like many other buildings in the area, it is to be a 13 story building, with a prayer room on the upper two floors. No minarets, no muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. A community center, with classrooms, performing arts auditorium, swimming pool, basketball court. Sounds pretty American, doesn't it?

And the imam, who has been a respected religious leader in New York for 30 years and is heading it up, is a U.S. citizen and has been consulted by the FBI for sensitivity training for its agents and for counterterrorism advice. Newt was just dead wrong when he called them "radical Islamists."

To Glen Beck, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, GOP politicians, etc. who are outraged that the GZ "hallowed ground" will be violated, what about these little inconvenient facts:

1. Another 2 blocks away there is a strip club. As Bob Cesca of HP writes: "I'm not sure how lap dances are less offensive than a religious community center."

2. There is already a Muslim prayer hall even closer to GZ that has been a peaceful meeting place for praying even before the WTC was built there, and it continues. No one has ever complained of terrorist activity originating there.

3. In the actual ground zero space -- that is the actual ground where the towers collapsed and where people actually died, which might actually be said to be hallowed by their sacrifice -- there is going to be a 55,000 sq ft mall of retail shops. So I guess all the critics think it's fine to go shopping on the actual ground site where they died -- maybe buy a bikini or a bottle of whiskey, things that are offensive to Muslims -- but it's a sacrilege to have a place two blocks away where prayer and interfaith cooperation are fostered.

Americans and their misplaced values !! How offensive to Muslims this whole thing must be. How cynical and insensitive it must make us look to the world -- who can easily see how this issue is being exploited and manipulated for crass political gain -- or radio listener ratings.

It does not do us proud. It does not make us look mature. It certainly does not make us look noble.

Ralph

Saber rattling

John Bolton -- the man George W. Bush rammed through in a recess appointment to be our ambassador to the United Nations -- is now making headlines:

Israel Has '8 Days' To Strike Iranian Nuclear Site,
Says Former UN Envoy John Bolton

Iran's first nuclear power reactor -- supposedly for peaceful energy purposes -- is set to be launched on August 21st. Bolton says, if Israel doesn't take it out before then, it will be too late because it would then release radiation into the atmosphere and affect civilians.

When asked whether he thought Israel would strike the power plant, he said no; they've probably waited too late and lost this opportunity.

Poor John Bolton. How frustrating when you so very much want to start a nuclear war and nobody will cooperate.

Ralph

Rachel !!

Announcement in the Huffington Post:

Rachel Maddow will receive an award named after Walter Cronkite.

The Interfaith Alliance announced Monday that it would award its 2010 Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom award to the MSNBC anchor in honor of her work covering religion and politics. Maddow will receive the award alongside Chautaqua Institution Department of Religion Director Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell.

The award, which will be presented at a gala dinner in New York in October, "recognizes individuals who courageously promote democratic values, defend religious freedom and reinvigorate informed civic participation," according to the announcement. Cronkite served as Honorary Chairman of the Interfaith Alliance until his death last year.

It helps that I agree in principle on every issue that Rachel discusses. It also helps that she is intelligent, goes for the deeper principle involved, uses reason and evidence to draw conclusions -- and in addition is smart, just sassy enough to be interesting, and -- last but not least -- does credit to the cause of recognizing that gay and lesbian folks can excel in roles where that is not relevant but also neither hidden nor exploited.

Congratulations, Rachel. Well deserved.

Ralph

"Ground Zero Mosque"

I want to amend what I wrote earlier today. My "ideal solution" to the controversy over the proposed mosque and Islamic center, I said, would be for the Islamic proponents to voluntarily choose another place, even in lower Manhattan, and then for the American leaders to join them in promoting the positive contributions of the center to the community -- a first step in demonstrating cooperation and a shared concern.

Based on what appears to be a whipped up politically expedient (they think) bigotry in the making, and on an informative article I just read in the New Yorker (Aug 16&23), I now want to retract that and stand firm against fear-mongering and bigotry. Here's my answer now: Do not only allow it to be built there but help them do it. And stand up strong against the opponents who would distort the whole project for political gain.

Here's what I learned from the article by Hendrick Hertzberg:

1. First of all, we should stop calling it the "Ground Zero Mosque." It is not at ground zero but two blocks north and is not even visible from the twin towers site. It would replace a run-down building in a neighborhood of restaurants, shops of all kinds, churches, office buildings. There is nothing about the site to suggest "hallowed ground."

2. Plans do not call for a grand mosque to be a house of worship for thousands. It is primarily a community center, with a prayer room. The building will house classrooms, galleries, a restaurant, a swimming pool, and -- get this -- a memorial to the victims of 9/11 !!! It will resemble nothing so much as the 92nd street YMCA, according to Hertzberg.

3. The people in charge of the plan are a New York couple, he from Kuwait and she from Kashmir. He is a Columbia graduate and has been the imam of a mosque in Tribeca for almost 30 years. He is vice-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. He denounces terrorism in general and the 9/11 attack in particular. He has been invited by the FBI to do sensitivity training for agents. His wife actively promotes cultural and religious harmony through interfaith organizational work.

4. Not all of the 9/11 victim's families oppose the plan; many strongly support it. The local Community Board that includes the area endorsed it 20 to 1.

It is sad and ultimately shameful for this issue to blow up because politicians feel they have to have another divisive issue to rouse their base. It takes a strong person to stand up and defend the rights of the currently despised minority, especially when your conservative opponent is beating the bigotry drum (Harry Reid, take note). It is particularly sad when this couple and their project are exactly what we need to advance the cause of peace and good will and mutual understanding.

Ralph

NYT conservative columnist

As a replacement for its highly over-rated, always-wrong conservative columnist William Krystol, the New York Times chose Ross Douthat. Sometimes I can even agree with him about some things. Today he has a nuanced piece about the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

There are two Americas, he says:

. . . an America where it doesn’t matter what language you speak, what god you worship, or how deep your New World roots run. An America where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides. An America where the newest arrival to our shores is no less American than the ever-so-great granddaughter of the Pilgrims.

But there’s another America as well, one that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions. This America speaks English . . . . It looks back to a particular religious heritage . . . . It draws its social norms from the mores of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora — and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms, and quickly.

These two understandings of America, one constitutional and one cultural, have been in tension throughout our history. And they’re in tension again this summer, in the controversy over the Islamic mosque and cultural center scheduled to go up two blocks from ground zero.

The first America is the one of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free." It is the America that President Obama and NY Mayor Blumberg described in their support of the right of Muslims to build the Mosque.

The second America sees the Mosque as an affront to the sensibilities of our pain from the 9/11 attacks, and it also harbors those who can't quite separate Islam from al Qaeda and those who mistrust foreigners anyway. In this case it includes both liberal New Yorkers and Tea Party ranters.

Obama came back with a sensible clarification of his position: Muslims have the right to build there, and it expresses our highest ideals to give them that right; but he's not saying that it is wise or sensitive on their part to build in that particular location.

The cause wasn't helped when a leader of Hamas declared that the Mosque must be built in that particular location. That will only fuel the fire of those who suspect ulterior motives, rather than the religious and educational function that is planned.

Douthat's point is similar to one I find increasingly cogent: so many of our major controversies could be distilled down to a clash of two values, and often both are valid. The solution -- often in the shape of a Supreme Court decision -- is in finding the balance between the two values.

Douthat continues:

The first America is correct to insist on Muslims’ absolute right to build and worship where they wish. But the second America is right to press for something more from Muslim Americans . . . than simple protestations of good faith. . . .

For Muslim Americans to integrate fully into our national life, they’ll need leaders . . . .whose antennas are sensitive enough to recognize that the quest for inter-religious dialogue is ill served by throwing up a high-profile mosque two blocks from the site of a mass murder committed in the name of Islam.

They’ll need leaders, in other words, who understand that while the ideals of the first America protect the e pluribus, it’s the demands the second America makes of new arrivals that help create the unum.

I think the ideal solution would be for those building the mosque and community center to voluntarily -- and with a show of genuine understanding -- find another location. It could even still be in lower Manhattan; just not two blocks from ground zero. And then for our political and religious leaders to join them in promoting the mosque and its future functioning by showing the American people the positive side of Islam. The combination of those two positions would be the basis for cooperation and mutual respect and understanding.

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Harry Reid, in a close political battle with a leading right-wingnut, has just issued a statement that the mosque should be built somewhere else. I'm afraid it's going to just escalate as the political season demands ever more issues to exploit, to stir up people's fear and hatred in the hope of getting a few more votes. Even in this climate, however, if I were responsible for making the decision, I would pick the value of the right to religious freedom as paramount. The world needs to see that our religious freedom and tolerance is real.

Ralph

Prop 8 ruling - 10: They had no evidence

After we sort through all the faux rhetoric about traditional meaning of marriage, about a judge overruling the will of the people, and about harm to children, what was the real outcome of Judge Vaughan Walker's clarion-clear, landmark ruling?

It of course was about a constitutional right to equal protection under the law and about due process. And it was about the human side of the marriage issue -- real life people and families and the difference it will make.

But here is what I think is most significant:

1. Judge Walker's ruling was grounded in evidence-based findings of fact and reason-based findings of law -- all superbly presented by experts chosen by Ted Olsen and David Buies, both very smart lawyers who came together from opposite ends of the political spectrum to mount this challenge to Prop 8.

2. The proponents of Prop 8 were given every opportunity to mount their best defense of their claim that same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage and will hurt children, and they came up short. They were not able to present any credible evidence, nor even any very believable arguments, as to how allowing same-sex couples to marry would harm any institution or any person.

Given that the suit was brought by plaintiffs against the State of California, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown named in their official capacities -- and given that both of them declined to have the state enter a defense of a law that neither of them supports -- the only defense mounted was by groups that promoted Prop 8 in the first place.

In addition to the major effect that this will have on the lives of many gay men and lesbians and their children, here is the real significance:

Given their day in court to produce the evidence to back up their claims -- they had none. Because there is none. That simple fact, revealed, is the most significant outcome.

Ralph