Let us count the ways.

Suppose the Catholic Church proposed to build a 13-story, 50,000 square-foot showpiece at Ground Zero? Or the 92nd St. Young Mens Hebrew Association proposed to relocate its facility to the site of the attack on the Twin Towers? Or the Billy Graham Evangelical Association offered to construct a megachurch on the property? They wouldnt, of course, because it is entirely inappropriate to assign a disproportionately prominent role for any religious denomination at the location of the most heinous foreign attack on American soil. The issue with the planned Muslim center at Ground Zero is not religious freedom, but favoritism towards Islam.

No one is proposing to build anything on "the site of the attack on the Twin Towers." That property is safely in the hands of American capitalists. The Islamic center, which is not a mosque, will go in two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. Even closer to the site is an Au Bon Pain. We know what they think about the "war on terror"--or at least the war in Iraq.No freedom fries there. Closer still: a Jean Louis David salon. Even if you won't grant that establishment's obvious anti-American sentiment, have you seen their prices? Utterly criminal.In some seriousness, there's no shortage of religious groups near the site. Catholics have St. Peter's. Methodists have John Street Church.The Episcopalians have Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel (talk about favoritism). The Amish have a market. Atheists have Merrill Lynch. Seems proportionate to me.Back to Goldman:

Liberals believe that if the West bends over backwards to be respectful towards Muslims, Muslims will cease to hate the West and stop killing Westerners. That is why New Yorks Mayor Bloomberg and liberals everywhere support this grotesque accommodation to Muslim triumphalism.

Let me be the first to admit that, as a liberal,all I want to do is give our new Muslim overlords whatever they want. They canscheme party as late as they'd like in the mosquebehind my apartment whose windows apparently don't close. I wouldn't wantto anger themlest they blow up my building (and maybe theirs in the blowback--they're just that Muslim).Ahem.Yes, wouldn't it be easier if this dispute were between empty-headed liberals who want to accommodate--I believe the word Goldman was searching for was "appease"--every Islamicist's whim, and clear-eyed conservatives who see the threat (or at least insult) posed by this Islamic center in Lower Manhattan? But I'm afraid Goldman, no matter how many facts he makes up,doesn't get to set the terms of the debate. Neither does newly minted Catholic Newt Gingrich. Or Sarah Palin. That pesky First Amendment does.In early June, well before the fearmongering peaked, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York wrote the following about the proposed Islamic center (which he mistakenly calls a mosque):

We Catholics are hospitable to newcomers, not just because we faced hostility and closed-doors in the past, not only because our Church teaches this value, but because we are loyal Americans. Our beloved country is predicated on religious freedom, toleration, and the innate dignity of every human person, regardless of race, ethnic background, or religion. And we New Yorkers have been a sterling example of making genuine the words of hope held out by the Statue of Liberty.(...)What is not acceptable is to prejudge any group, or to let fear and bias trump the towering American (and for us Catholics, the religious) virtues of hospitality, welcome, and religious freedom.

Might be a good time for the archbishop to reiterate that point more forcefully.

Grant Gallicho joined Commonweal as an intern and was an associate editor for the magazine until 2015. 

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