Open letter to my Muslim friends - Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty of NRO pens an open letter and addendi that I reproduce in toto.

1. Accusations of Religious Bigotry in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Hey, Muslim friends, we need to talk. I know a bunch of you, both here and in Turkey. I know you're not extremists. I know you're the definition of decent folk. Your faith isn't my cup of tea, but it doesn't have to be; I know mine isn't yours. But this "Ground Zero Mosque" thing is going to cause all of us a lot of problems. I'd like to think I would be a little wary of a self-proclaimed "Ground Zero Church," too. I don't mean the existing houses of worship that were or may be rebuilt near that site; I mean if some flock said that they were going to move in, as close to the mass grave as possible, and build a new site, explicitly labeled as the church of the site, to pray in the name of one faith that I may or may not share -- it just wouldn't be appropriate. The meaning of 9/11 is too . . . simultaneously epic in scale and deeply, intensely personal in its impact to have part of it shoehorned into one religious institution, even for a faith as central to the event as Islam. It would feel like emotional merchandising, like some sort of Ground Zero Gift Shop. Right now, a lot of my fellow Americans don't see the decency in you that I do; you can ascribe that to Islamophobia or xenophobia or intolerance, but you and I know a bunch of yahoos, claiming to act in the name of your faith, keep giving them new justifications for their distrust and more reasons to dismiss all of you. The benefit of the doubt is shrinking, my friends. A lot of folk who never looked for a fight over religion wonder where the backlash is, wonder why they don't see more Muslims speaking louder about the ridiculousness of threatening people's lives over cartoons. And if you really can't see why Americans might recoil from a mosque at a site where the wreckage of one of those planes fell, ask yourself how you would feel about Americans building churches and synagogues, in the name of cultural understanding, where our bombs have fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq. Allegedly this mosque is being built to promote understanding and tolerance and compassion. Well, the Cordoba folks ought to try understanding why it bothers people and tolerate the public's touchiness about this and show a bit of compassion and find a site a few blocks further away. It's not Islam in principle that's objectionable; Manhattan's got a lot of mosques. Look elsewhere, guys; it's still a buyer's market in real estate. Leave it to Dorothy Rabinowitz to put it so clearly: "In the course of a speech at Dartmouth on July 16 [Mayor Bloomberg] raised the matter unasked, and held forth on his contempt for those who opposed the project and even wanted to investigate the funding: 'I just think it's the most outrageous thing anybody could suggest.' Ground Zero is a 'very appropriate place' for a mosque, the mayor announced, because it 'tells the world' that in America, we have freedom of religion for everybody. Here was an idea we have been hearing more and more of lately -- the need to show the world America's devotion to democracy and justice, also cited by the administration as a reason to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. Who is it, we can only wonder, that requires these proofs? What occasions these regular brayings on the need to show the world the United States is a free nation?" Allahpundit, too, has had enough with the "condescending cretin Mike Bloomberg. He's deeply opposed to demagoguery, you know, except when he's idly wondering whether an angry health-care protester might be responsible for the bomb in Times Square." Ann Althouse: "What should not be lost, in understanding that, is that the owner's freedom means that the owner has a choice. The owner is certainly not required to build a Muslim center and mosque on that site. Because it is a choice, it's not wrong for the community to ask: Why are you making this choice? Why are you doing something that feels so painful to us? The community isn't wrong to plead with the owner to choose to do something else with that property. It's not enough of an answer to say we are doing it because we have a right to do it." These are the kinds of issues where I can't wait to read Jen Rubin. At Contentions, she offers, "No, it's not about 'religious freedom' -- we're talking about the location of the mosque on the ash-strewn site of 3,000 dead Americans. The J Street crowd and the liberal defenders of the mosque seem very bent out of shape when Americans want to defend the sensibilities of their fellow citizens and when they look askance at an imam whose funding appears to come from those whose goal is anything but religious reconciliation. Again, no one is telling Muslims not to build or pray in mosques; we on the right are simply asking them not to do it in the location where Islam was the inspiration for mass murder." Also at Contentions, Pete Wehner concludes, "It's an issue Obama shouldn't be allowed to vote 'present' on."