Showing posts with label Muslims. Show all posts

Zoned Out: What Happened To The Ground Zero Mosque?



Barry Rubin updates us on the status of the Ground Zero Mosque, which you may recall was an issue that exploded this time last year with the "proper" opinion being it should be built immediately (and opponents were racist Tea Baggers in the pay of the Koch Brothers). Well, Rubin reports that the Mosque is never going to be built despite the best efforts of the enlightened left:

Readers of my column know that I have written repeatedly that the “Ground Zero” mosque would never be built for reasons having nothing to do with politics. The main financiers and the imam have gotten into one legal problem after another and Allstate Insurance Company is now launching a major lawsuit for fraud against one of them. As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11, it’s clear that there isn’t going to be a mosque next to the World Trade Center attack site.

From the start, it seemed to me that the whole project was designed as something of a scam by shady characters to get lots of money from the contributions of the Saudis and others. In other words, the controversial and triumphalist aspects of the mosque were a public relations’ scheme designed to win millions of dollars from the Muslim-majority world’s millionaires. When the money didn’t materialize–the controversy didn’t help matters–the whole thing fell apart.

...

Here’s the real story:

A group of people with a terrible record as developers who didn’t develop, businessmen who didn’t pay their bills, and slumlords put together a very badly designed project that would never otherwise have gotten zoning and other permits. In other words, the true story is how city officials gave special privileges and the media gave sweetheart coverage because people were Muslims building a mosque, not that there was discrimination against Muslims who wanted to build a mosque. Remember, in the end the mosque project got everything its advocates wanted and yet it still wasn’t built.

It is the story of how the corrupt can play a system built around special privileges for special categories of people, in which fear of being labelled some variety of “racist” overrides the proper enforcement of the law.

You have to laugh at this stuff. I mean, the president and the mayor of New York went on Full Smug Liberal Alert over this thing! No one - no one, that is, except the American public, which recoiled at the thought of a Ground Zero Mosque - thought to question the propriety of such a mosque. And, if they did so question, they never even reached the issue of whether the sleazy imam at the center of the project was the right man for such a fraught job. And after all that, whinging Muslims and their political sponsors got everything they wanted - and still couldn't get the job done.


Of course, if they point of such a pointless controversy was to divide Americans over the issue of whether a mosque could be built in a particular location, then I guess you could say "Mission Accomplished," but that seems like a dubious mission indeed. I'd like to think someone out there is embarrassed over this, but it's not likely.




Flame On: Burning Korans In CA


As a follow up to my recent post on Pastor Jones being jailed for planning a protest at a mosque, I heard from Free Will blog friend Stogie, who said that he had burned a Koran last September 11th and posted the video on YouTube.


Free Will has some of the more bad-ass readers on the internet.



Islamophobe: Obama Reaches The Limits of Multiculturalism


Jake Tapper has a report that President Obama will not be visiting the Sikh's Golden Temple on his India trip because, get this, he is afraid he will "look Muslim" on account of the Golden Temple's dress code (which requires that he cover his head). We have a very lame President:
On an upcoming trip to India, President Obama will skip visiting one of the country’s most sacred shrines out of fear that wearing the requisite headgear might make him appear Muslim, according to reports from the United States and India.

The New York Times, citing an unnamed American official involved in the trip’s planning, reports that the president will not stop at the Golden Temple, a Sikh holy site and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions, because visitors typically wear headscarves, turbans or Muslim caps.

Obama was to visit the sprawling golden complex in Amritsar, "but the plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple," wrote the Times.

"To come to golden temple he needs to cover his head," Dalmegh Singh, secretary of the committee that runs the temple told the paper. "That is our tradition. It is their problem to cover the head with a Christian hat or a Muslim cap."
I am hearing a George Carlin voice in my head saying, "In football you wear a helmet, in baseball you wear a cap!"

Still, President Obama? Sensitive much? You can't walk into a holy site without wondering how it will reflect on you? It's one of the few places in the world that's meant to remind you that there are greater things in this world than your fabulous self. Maybe that's the real problem.

As for the Obama = Muslim problem, come on. If the President had any confidence, this wouldn't be an issue. Laura Bush was able to travel the Middle East with her head covered. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Golden Temple with his head covered. But, Obama would rather hide behind the supposed bigotry of his countrymen (led by his fellow Democrats who first raised the issue) than do his duty as a statesman.


Modesty Blaze, Pt. 2


The dark night of Islamophobia has descended upon the Bay Area, as Muslim women find themselves victimized at the workplace, unable to pursue their chosen profession because their employer will not allow them to wear headscarves. The name of this Amerikkkan employer? Abercrombie & Fitch?!

A federal civil rights agency sued Abercrombie & Fitch on Wednesday on behalf of an 18-year-old woman who said she applied for her first job at the company's store at the Great Mall in Milpitas and was turned down because she wore a Muslim head scarf.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went to court against Abercrombie & Fitch last year over a similar incident in Tulsa, Okla. In Wednesday's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the agency again accused the Ohio company of discriminating on the basis of religion.

"This retailer that targets a youth market is sending the message that you cannot aspire to their 'All American' brand if you wear a head covering to comply with your faith," said William Tamayo, the agency's regional attorney.

You may recall a similar complaint made by a San Mateo woman last February. It's an odd trend to say the least. These girls are modest and devout enough to insist on wearing a headscarf, yet they insist on enforcing their right to get a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, a retailer that is ... not known for its modesty or sympathy for the religiously devout. Just wait, after we have gay marriage, the new "civil right" propagated by the Left will be sharia-compliance.


The 5-Minute Mosque: The Ground Zero Mosque


Everyone and his dog has felt compelled to issue an instant opinion on the prospect of a $100 million mosque being built near ground zero. Sophisticated progressives have predictably come down on the side of building the mosque and lecturing the hoi polloi on their intolerance. Now the NY Times comes up with a timely article about Tea Parties protesting mosques "around the nation"
While a high-profile battle rages over a mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, heated confrontations have also broken out in communities across the country where mosques are proposed for far less hallowed locations.

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their backyards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise — the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.

In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.

These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.

“What’s different is the heat, the volume, the level of hostility,” said Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky. “It’s one thing to oppose a mosque because traffic might increase, but it’s different when you say these mosques are going to be nurturing terrorist bombers, that Islam is invading, that civilization is being undermined by Muslims.”

You know, whatever. All these people calling for "tolerance" probably have the right idea because tolerance is all anyone determined to build a mosque at Ground Zero deserves. And by "tolerance," I don't mean pompous speeches from Mike Bloomberg and an annual Pride Parade. I mean, real tolerance of the grit-your-teeth/don't-say-anything-if-you-can't-say-anything-nice variety. Honestly, am I saying anything controversial if I point out that the the level of anti-Christian/anti-American bias in the Muslim world is exponentially greater than the equivalent in the United States against Muslims? I hope not. See, it's hard to be tolerant - or even particularly welcoming - when you know the same courtesy would never be extended to you.

Still, you know what would make a Ground Zero Mosque go down better? How about a freakin' Ground Zero Memorial? Yeah, I know there's one that's going to be there at some indefinite time in the future. But, right now there's just a hole in the ground. It's been nearly nine years, and no one can seem to figure out how to replace the buildings that were knocked down or remember the thousands of innocents who died on that terrible day. Is there any doubt that the Ground Zero Mosque will be open for business before anything else gets done?

There are a thousand reasons, I'm sure, for the dilatory resolution of Ground Zero development. Ask anyone in the Bloomberg administration, and you'll doubtless hear a lot of hushed talk about the many stakeholders involved, the bureaucratic red tape, the landowners, the Port Authority, and the catch-all "sensitivities." All true, I'm sure. But, the exact same people who seem to be unable to cope with the competing interests in Lower Mannhatten, have gone out of their way to rush the Ground Zero Mosque through the permitting process. That's what really irks.

It's another example of our brave new "can't do" society, where a legal thicket exists to thwart the will of the people, while the politically favored are ushered in past the line to the best table in the house.



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