What Obama Said BUT with Conviction (no waffles)

Without the emergence of a genuine spirit of religious pluralism, there is no hope for the development of harmony based on true interreligious understanding.

From: “The Challenge of Other Religions” By His Holiness the Dali Lama

I’m sure this post is going to irritate a lot of people. I know this tends to be Myiq2xu’s job here but I’m going to do it because I’ve never backed away from talking about what is right even though it might not be particularly emotionally palatable. Whenever we mention any thing that remotely associated with Islam or Israel or Palestine, people become unhinged. (In fact, we’ve had people leave and we’ve had to ban people over the issue. So, please be civil. I expect many folks to disagree with me.) The entire area is almost by definition one big morass of hard and complex issues wrapped up in emotional diatribes and in many cases, family histories.

We lost Helen Thomas’ voice to irrational discourse on the issue. We lost Octavia Nasr also. I am speaking up because we can’t afford to lose important voices and stop important dialogues.

The headlines today are full of what Obama did or didn’t say about the potential Mosque to be built near Ground Zero. I still haven’t figure out why all Muslims are to blame for the few that flew those airplanes into the Twin Towers. Timothy McVeigh blew up a building with a day care and killed innocent government workers and babies. He barely gets a mention in the news these days. We don’t feel the same thing about right wing nut militias or paint all veterans with the McVeigh brush. Some how, just being a Muslim or talking about Islam as a viable religious choice makes some folks crazy. I know part of this links to the history of Israel and I know that there’s historical issues in India with Pakistan. There’s also parts of the tribal practices that are anathema; like genital mutilation of women in some parts of Africa that are now Muslim and the entire cult of covering women completely up which is linked a lot to Arabic culture. There are many places where Islam is practiced that have not adopted any of these rituals because they are a cultural thing and some cultural things get codified in the religious practice of a particular area.

There’s a lot of violent craziness in extreme Islamic fascism. There’s also been Christian fascists that blow up abortion clinics and kill abortion providers. For the most part, in the Western World, we’ve educated some of the barbarian practices out of the majority of people. This is not the case in the third world, but again, they’ve got poor access to everything from food to health to schools to every benefit that comes from living in an open society. That’s why there’s larger numbers of them.

We do live–at least I thought we did–in an open society. We also live in a country where our basic principals and commitments to each other are stated in The Constitution. That’s because the founders came from a time when religious fundamentalism and closed societies were still a norm in Europe. They remembered the days of being slaughtered when you were a protestant or Jew in a catholic country (that’s how my protestant and Jewish ancestors made it here) or when you were a catholic or a Jew in a protestant country. They put up laws to protect every one because they knew how quickly a political coup can put a favored group into a persecuted position really quickly. As recently as the Northern Ireland terrorism, we still saw that come into play.

For the reasons of 9/11 and the continued yammering by some people with access to media, we’ve forgotten all that history. A terrorist is a terrorist and a fanatic is a fanatic. They come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Open societies and rules of laws, however, teach us how to deal with these people without resulting to bigotry. For example, Christian proselytizing offends me to no end. Frankly, if I were acting on my primal instincts, I’d pull out a gun and shoot every one of them. It’s irritating, insulting, patronizing, and obnoxious behavior. However, I live in an open society with laws that protect that and as a civilized human being, I know to smile and walk away. (Although, I was known to turn the garden hose and water my plants “over actively” when they were acting up around Mardi Gras.) The only time I enter a church is when it’s historically relevant and I’m interested in the architecture. The same would go for a mosque, a synagogue, or a Hindu Temple. But, every one has a right to build them, worship in them, and avoid taxes with them in this country. PERIOD.

Also, it’s not about some perceived insensitivity to an aggrieved majority. It’s about the rights of minorities as outlined in OUR Constitution. If they start plotting terrorist activities in there, then by all means send in the FBI, arrest people, and close it down. Until then it’s protected speech and religious activities. Again, I was perfectly miserable when a bunch of big barn churches set up in my neighborhood in Omaha. One was southern baptist and the other some Evangelical cult attached to a minister who moved his daughter and family within a block of mine. They’re always out and about protesting anything having to do with ‘gay’ culture and independent women. It was terrifically annoying, but it’s their right and nothing I could do was going to stop these people from building their behemoth buildings to shake, quake, and annoyingly, knock on my door to ask me if I’d been saved. (Now, I live in gay enclaves and bohemian neighborhoods where they are unlikely to set foot.) Again, I treat them like any door-to-door sales person, I say no thank you, and close the door in their face because, in an open society, with rule of law, that’s what we’re taught to do. It’s not what you’re taught to do in places in countries that can’t even get electricity and clean water. That’s the root of all these issues.

So, what Obama said last night before he triangulated this morning was this:

White House officials said earlier in the day that Mr. Obama was not trying to promote the project, but rather sought more broadly to make a statement about freedom of religion and American values. “In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Mr. Obama said at the Coast Guard station. “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.

“And I think it’s very important as difficult as some of these issues are that we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”

At the dinner on Friday night, Mr. Obama had proclaimed that “as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

That’s absolutely the correct thing to say.

Now, maybe it’s because in my area of finance and economics I am more surrounded by Hindus and Muslims than most people, but I’ve been exposed to practitioners of Islam since the 1970s. I’ve found more differences between me and the Southern Baptists on Dodge Street in Omaha who wouldn’t condemn violence in abortion clinics and murdering of Doctors than I’ve found with my Islamic colleagues and mentors. I frequently sit and wait while my colleagues do their prayers in their office so we can return to work together. They attend mosques and they need them just as much as those Southern Baptists on Dodge Street in Omaha need their megachurch. It’s not for me but again, it’s not for me to tell them not to build them or go there. If I’m offended by either, tough toenails, because it’s an open society with rule of law and The Constitution and it’s their right to do it and my right to complain about it.

President Obama waffled on this this morning and, as usual, he’s not made any of these statements with any intonation of commitment. Let’s look at a contrast here.

Last week, New York City removed the final construction hurdle for the project, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke forcefully in favor of it.

Here’s his speech and part of it that’s just damned right.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.”

Of course it’s not popular, of course right wing nuts will use this to stir up the emotions of people who still hurt from that horrible day of 9/11. But again, this is an open society, with rule of law, and a Constitution that protects religious activity.

President Milquetoast said the right thing. Leave it to me, to piss you all off, and write it forcefully with commitment.

And again, I’d live in a religion free zone if I could have my own way.