The World is Watching

America’s reputation for religious tolerance and decency has taken a terrible hit with this brouhaha over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. It is a self-inflicted wound, aided in no small part by the Tea Party and the fear-mongers at Fox News who never miss an opportunity to summon the darker aspects of our nature for political purposes. All this in the name of a higher patriotism, of course.

For all its supposed love of America and its Constitution, it’s interesting that the far Right seems to limit its coverage to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, and conveniently ignores other provisions of the Constitution such as the protection it provides for freedom of religion, not just for Christians, but for all religions, even for those who chose not to profess any religion at all.

First of all, a clarification: It’s not a mosque that is being planned for the site near Ground Zero, not that it makes any difference, but a Muslim Cultural Center, very much like YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers that dot the land all across America. There would be a Muslim prayer room at the center site, but there’s also a Muslim prayer room where American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on 9/11. But, those distinctions are inconvenient for those whose aim is to stir up fear and hatred for political gain in November and eventually oust that Muslim-in-hiding from the White House.

The Tea Party also fails to make the distinction between the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, whose religion was hijacked by 9/11 and the terrorists who perpetrated the atrocity. This nuance would only muddy the ugly narrative the Tea Party folks and their spokespersons at Fox are trying to foist on the public.

When President Obama joined the fray and upheld the constitutional right of the Muslin center’s developers, the far Right saw this as further proof that the President is Muslim, not Christian as he claims. Here at home, mosques around the country are receiving threats as a result of this shameless appeal to the fears and latent bigotry of many Americans. In fact, if you scratch below the surface of the Tea Party, there lies a strong strain of religious bigotry and racism, and it shows up time and time again, including most notably in the debate over immigration.

It would be one thing for us to air our dirty political laundry in public, if only we Americans were observing the squabble. But, we’re not. The whole world is watching and the Islamic terrorists must be delighted with the recruiting tool we just handed them on a platter. It only just goes to show, the jihadists will maintain, that the “war on terrorism” is bogus. It’s really a war again Muslims, they will claim in their continuing false narrative, and all Muslims must join the battle.

Has the Tea Party and its adherents and sympathizers no shame, you might ask? Apparently not. A further case in point -- the recent move by Glenn Beck, with Sarah Palin in tow, to stage a “Restoring Honor Rally” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28 – 47 years to the day that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s not even a subtle nod and a wink to racists, as was President Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in the late 60’s. It’s bold and breathtakingly cynical, but it’ll probably work for a fairly sizeable segment of the voting public and be a factor in the November elections.

Unless, of course, we do something about it and other Tea Party pandering by getting politically involved. We need to recall — and act — on the words of Edmund Burke that inspired the original Tea Party revolutionaries: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Gerald E. Lavey