By Kathleen Parker
Confession: I would prefer that the mosque not be built so close to the ground where nearly 3000 innocent souls perished. 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. The mosque should be built precisely because we dont like the idea very much. We dont need constitutional protections to be agreeable after all.
This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque principally that theres no law against it. Precluding any such law we let people worship when and where they please.
That it hurts some peoples feelings is well irrelevant in a nation of laws.
And really dont we want to keep it that way?
Confession: I would prefer that the mosque not be built so close to the ground where nearly 3000 innocent souls perished. Thats my personal feeling especially as I imagine the suffering of so many families whose loved ones died in the conflagration.
But why do so many Americans feel this way? The answer is inherent in the question. Feeling is emotion which isnt necessarily bad but it bears watching.
Reason tells us something else: The Muslims who want to build this mosque didnt fly airplanes into skyscrapers. They dont support terrorism. By what understanding do we assign guilt to all for the actions of a relative few?
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 Charles Krauthammer pointed out Pope John Paul II ordered Carmelite nuns to abandon a convent they had established at Auschwitz among other examples.
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 weve heard sensitivity invoked the past several days. Muslims should be more sensitive to the families of those who perished weve heard repeatedly. Even the Anti-Defamation League defender of religious freedom urged the mosques leaders to situate the building farther from Ground Zero -- out of sensitivity.
Many couldnt agree more and yet it goes without saying -- even if President Obama 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.
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 religions worst adherents slaughtered thousands fellow Muslims among them be useful to that end?
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.
The idea that one should never have ones 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 isnt a stretch to say that the greatest threat to free speech is in fact sensitivity.
This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed if thats what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We cant insist that our 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.
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.
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.
Ultimately when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of speech or religious belief -- or disbelief -- we all lose.
