NBC/CBS reject "Kill the Ground Zero Mosque" ad

Again, I would prefer not to see "Paintings of the Prophet" stores open across from mosques, etc. I wouldn't consider it "right." But it would certainly be legal. And if there's some backward law anywhere in the country that prohibits that, it should be repealed. There's nothing fundamentally offensive about pictures of the Prophet or Allah unless you hold that religious belief -- and as you've pointed out, free speech should triumph.

Steve

From a "moral rightness" perspective, your analogy falls apart because the primary reason, perhaps the only reason, for a "paintings of Muhammad" store is to offend Muslims. It's not like there's a widespread desire in the community for people to own portraits of Muhammad. But the purpose of a mosque isn't to offend victims of terrorism. The purpose of a mosque is to give Muslims a place to pray. Christians and Jews who work in downtown Manhattan have a local place to pray so that they don't have to travel an hour to attend religious services; why shouldn't Muslims as well?

What you're doing is equating (1) deliberately offending someone by doing something that serves no purpose besides offending people, and (2) inadvertently offending someone because that person finds your very identity (basic identity traits such as religion) inherently offensive. And those are not remotely equivalent.

EDIT: A closer analogy would be "some Catholics are offended by homosexuality, is it morally right for an LGBT community center to be built within two blocks of a major cathedral?" And I would be shocked if anyone here said "no."
 
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How about this: I'm pretty sure that the reason South Park wanted to show Muhammad was not to offend Muslims but rather to fight for free speech.

People always get offended left and right. Its not against the law to offend someone (and it shouldn't be) but some things fall under the "moral rightness perspective", as you (Mitlov) put it. Telling a Holocaust joke to a Jew is by no means illegal but its still in bad taste.
 
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How about this: I'm pretty sure that the reason South Park wanted to show Muhammad was not to offend Muslims but rather to fight for free speech.

People always get offended left and right. Its not against the law to offend someone (and it shouldn't be) but some things fall under the "moral rightness perspective", as you (Mitlov) put it. Telling a Holocaust joke to a Jew is by no means illegal but its still in bad taste.

A Muslim praying within two blocks of a victim of terrorism is NOT the same as telling a Holocaust joke to a Jew! Once again, we're getting into (1) deliberately offending someone, versus (2) inadvertently offending someone because they find your basic identity offensive.

I supported the airing of the South Park episode and I've watched it, and it was nothing remotely like showing Muhammad raping an animal like Steve Levin mentioned. But yes, there was some deliberate offense involved. They took something prohibited by a religion and did it, while basically asserting "I know this is going to offend you, but it shouldn't." That's still, at its core, deliberate offense (albeit for a legitimate religious-cultural purpose meant to foster meaningful debate, not gratuitous and pointless deliberate offense), and can't be compared to offending somebody by your very existence because they don't approve of your religion, race, or sexual orientation. And it's the latter we're dealing with here.
 
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People always get offended left and right. Its not against the law to offend someone (and it shouldn't be) but some things fall under the "moral rightness perspective", as you (Mitlov) put it. Telling a Holocaust joke to a Jew is by no means illegal but its still in bad taste.
The key phrase there being "it's not against the law to offend someone". The people opposed to this, no matter how offended they are, still have no right to actually prevent this from being built.

I don't think the subjectivity of the "moral rightness perspective" needs to be expanded upon, either. I think it's quite evident from the public debate about this that different people have fundamentally different morals, and it's useless to try and make any sort of judgment based on them.
 
How about this: I'm pretty sure that the reason South Park wanted to show Muhammad was not to offend Muslims but rather to fight for free speech.

That is exactly the point.

Mitlov said:
EDIT: A closer analogy would be "some Catholics are offended by homosexuality, is it morally right for an LGBT community center to be built within two blocks of a major cathedral?" And I would be shocked if anyone here said "no."

Okay, let's take your analogy for a bit. But we need to refine a bit, because you are downplaying the locational relevance. To make it more comparable, we need to have the (AND THIS IS FALSE, OKAY GUYS? LET'S NOT HAVE A SILLY 4000 POSTS STRAWMAN HERE) members of Pink Army of Redemption -- a radical group that finds the heterosexual stance of the Catholic Church highly offensive -- lock 3,000 Catholics inside the cathedral during Mass, then set fire to the structure, killing them.

Then after the LGBT community center is proposed, there is a significant uproar and it's clear that many people would be offended if the project went ahead in that location.

At what point is proceeding with something found offensive simply being offensive, and when does that outweigh the other reasons for proceeding?

Steve
 
A Muslim praying within two blocks of a victim of terrorism is NOT the same as telling a Holocaust joke to a Jew!
After a long drawn-out battle I admitted that I don't think that a Muslim praying two blocks away from Ground Zero is all that bad. Building this center/mosque at the site of the September 11 attacks would be too much though, imo. This really boils down to personal stance on how offensive something has to be before its inappropriate/banned/whatever.


The key phrase there being "it's not against the law to offend someone". The people opposed to this, no matter how offended they are, still have no right to actually prevent this from being built.

I don't think the subjectivity of the "moral rightness perspective" needs to be expanded upon, either. I think it's quite evident from the public debate about this that different people have fundamentally different morals, and it's useless to try and make any sort of judgment based on them.
True.


Okay, let's take your analogy for a bit. But we need to refine a bit, because you are downplaying the locational relevance. To make it more comparable, we need to have the (AND THIS IS FALSE, OKAY GUYS? LET'S NOT HAVE A SILLY 4000 POSTS STRAWMAN HERE) members of Pink Army of Redemption -- a radical group that finds the heterosexual stance of the Catholic Church highly offensive -- lock 3,000 Catholics inside the cathedral during Mass, then set fire to the structure, killing them.

Then after the LGBT community center is proposed, there is a significant uproar and it's clear that many people would be offended if the project went ahead in that location.

At what point is proceeding with something found offensive simply being offensive, and when does that outweigh the other reasons for proceeding?

Steve
I think at this point you are getting into "all Muslims are terrorists" territory.
Like I said, I would definitely have a problem with a mosque being build right at Ground Zero. That crosses the line for me. Two blocks away and cant be seen from Ground Zero? pfft, whatever
 
... Members of Pink Army of Redemption -- a radical group that finds the heterosexual stance of the Catholic Church highly offensive -- lock 3,000 Catholics inside the cathedral during Mass, then set fire to the structure, killing them.

Then after the LGBT community center is proposed, there is a significant uproar and it's clear that many people would be offended if the project went ahead in that location.

At what point is proceeding with something found offensive simply being offensive, and when does that outweigh the other reasons for proceeding?
I think the only real problem I have with that analogy is that it's implied that no LGBT members of the community would be innocently killed in that terrorism. Many Muslims died and many more were affected as a result of the 9/11 attack, too, so they have just as much right to a place of healing in the vicinity as anyone else.

And again, this brings up the subjectivity of "morals" and "offense". A lot of people (of all faiths) found Touchdown Jesus offensive, but that didn't stop the church from building it, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anyone from re-building it.
 
Okay, let's take your analogy for a bit. But we need to refine a bit, because you are downplaying the locational relevance. To make it more comparable, we need to have the (AND THIS IS FALSE, OKAY GUYS? LET'S NOT HAVE A SILLY 4000 POSTS STRAWMAN HERE) members of Pink Army of Redemption -- a radical group that finds the heterosexual stance of the Catholic Church highly offensive -- lock 3,000 Catholics inside the cathedral during Mass, then set fire to the structure, killing them.

Then after the LGBT community center is proposed, there is a significant uproar and it's clear that many people would be offended if the project went ahead in that location.

At what point is proceeding with something found offensive simply being offensive, and when does that outweigh the other reasons for proceeding?

Steve

Let's run with this analogy. Would you seriously look Ellen Degeneres in the eye and tell her that you think it's morally repugnant for her to meet with her friends in downtown Boston to have coffee and talk about the legal battle against Prop 8 because, a decade ago, a bunch of radicals she never knew and never supported killed a bunch of people? You'd seriously do that?
 
Rabbi Arthur Waskow weighs in in favor of the Cordoba House and against the ADL:

First, the facts: The Cordoba Institute, led by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, plans to build an Islamic community center with a prayer space included, in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center murderously destroyed on 9/11/01.

Some family members of those killed on 9/11 have opposed this siting; others, and a large majority of the local neighborhood community board, have supported it. The national Jewish Council on Public Affairs describes Imam Rauf thus: "The leader behind this initiative is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, author of What's Right with Islam, who has spoken at JCPA programs in the past, and, along with his wife Daisy Kahn, has developed close relationships with members of the New York Jewish community."

The Anti-Defamation League late last week announced its opposition to the Cordoba plans, citing as its main reason that it would bring emotional pain to 9/11 families.

How might we think and act on this question?

Suppose we were to apply what the great Rabbi Hillel told us two thousand years ago is the very heart of Torah:

"Don't do to your neighbor what you would hate if your neighbor did it to you."

The following six paragraphs are not fact; they are fiction. But they have a nonfiction point. Please note your own reactions to this fictional story.

"Two major organizations of Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans today urged the city of Detroit to prevent the building of a new synagogue in the city.

?The two organizations said that while Jews have a legal "right? to build a synagogue there, it was not ethically " right? to do so in the face of the emotional upset it would cause the Palestinian and Arab residents of Detroit, many of whose families suffered from the Israeli government?s blockade and invasion of Gaza.

"Leaders of the new synagogue pointed out that, while deeply committed to the security and the flourishing of the State of Israel as a country with a special relationship to the Jewish people, they had often condemned specific policies of the Israeli government and had for many years actively supported a peace settlement between Israel and a new state of Palestine.

"They added that they had been active in interfaith work and as a result of coming to understand the deep traumas of many communities in the Middle East, had opposed the Israeli government's invasion of Gaza in 2009. They said the new synagogue would be a venue devoted to multireligious and multicultural dialogue and peacemaking, and prayer to the One God Whom Muslims also worship.

"The Arab-American and Muslim American organizations responded that this did not matter: Arab-Americans in Detroit were so deeply traumatized by the invasion of Gaza, the continuing blockade against crucial economic exports from Gaza, and by the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem that they could not be expected to pay attention to differences of opinion within the Jewish community. So the repeated traumatization of their community by intruding a synagogue in their midst was unacceptable."

The Detroit events described above never happened. Except in reverse.

Applying the Hillel rule, The Shalom Center, in consultation with dozens of rabbis and other Jewish leaders of a very wide spectrum of Jewish life, has issued a statement supporting Cordoba's plans as an affirmation of the deepest commitments of Islam to live in peace and as a direct rebuke to the 9/11 terrorists who justified their murders in the name of Islam.

The statement also suggested that Jews call the Anti-Defamation League to urge that it reverse its position. The Shalom Center also invited Jews to gather at the planned site of Cordoba House, 45 Park Place, at noon today for a vigil affirming the wisdom of peace-committed Muslims in building there a beacon of peace and interfaith dialogue.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/05/my-take-the-jewish-case-for-the-ground-zero-mosque/?hpt=C2
 
The key phrase there being "it's not against the law to offend someone". The people opposed to this, no matter how offended they are, still have no right to actually prevent this from being built.

Thats definitely true. I am offended at the fact that there are people offended by this.
 
After a long drawn-out battle I admitted that I don't think that a Muslim praying two blocks away from Ground Zero is all that bad. Building this center/mosque at the site of the September 11 attacks would be too much though, imo. This really boils down to personal stance on how offensive something has to be before its inappropriate/banned/whatever.

Any legislation based on "offense" is BS. If you're that offended, protest. If that doesn't work, move somewhere else. If that still wont cut it, gtfo. One of the reasons the govrnment shouldnt bother with this nonsense is because it IS all up to "personal stance" whats too offensive.

eye_can_see_now_native_american_cop.jpg


Welcome to America. Your feelings may be hurt....sack up.
 
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Welcome to America. Your feelings may be hurt....sack up.

Actually, I think a lot of the time in the US (and creeping elsewhere) is that people are encouraged to place themselves in a minority and complain about victimhood. Whether it is defining yourself as African-American, Irish, Polish, Hispanic, gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, conservative, liberal. Choose a minority and put yourself in a demographic box. Witness the right wing, which has national television stations and countless radio stations committed to shouting about how their voice can't be heard. Even no such thing as an American, you've got to be a Real American.

Always

"As a Jew..."
"As an African-American..."
"As a member of the gay community..."

Never

"As a human being..."
 
More evidense to blow away the, "Well if it was just farther away from Ground Zero we would be ok with the Mosque," defense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/us/08mosque.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their backyards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise ? the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.

Don't get much farther from Ground Zero then Cali.

A smaller controversy is occurring in Temecula, about 60 miles north of San Diego, involving a typical stew of religion, politics and anti-immigrant sentiment. A Muslim community has been there for about 12 years and expanded to 150 families who have outgrown their makeshift worship space in a warehouse, said Mahmoud Harmoush, the imam, a lecturer at California State University, San Bernardino. The group wants to build a 25,000-square-foot center, with space for classrooms and a playground, on a lot it bought in 2000.

Mr. Harmoush said the Muslim families had contributed to the local food bank, sent truckloads of supplies to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and participated in music nights and Thanksgiving events with the local interfaith council.

?We do all these activities and nobody notices,? he said. ?Now that we have to build our center, everybody jumps to make it an issue.?

Recently, a small group of activists became alarmed about the mosque. Diana Serafin, a grandmother who lost her job in tech support this year, said she reached out to others she knew from attending Tea Party events and anti-immigration rallies. She said they read books by critics of Islam, including former Muslims like Walid Shoebat, Wafa Sultan and Manoucher Bakh. She also attended a meeting of the local chapter of ACT! for America, a Florida-based group that says its purpose is to defend Western civilization against Islam.

?As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,? Ms. Serafin said. ?I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.?
?I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,? she said. ?But Islam is not about a religion. It?s a political government, and it?s 100 percent against our Constitution.?

Ms. Serafin was among an estimated 20 to 30 people who turned out to protest the mosque, including some who intentionally took dogs to offend those Muslims who consider dogs to be ritually unclean. But they were outnumbered by at least 75 supporters. The City of Temecula recently postponed a hearing on whether to grant the mosque a permit.

Ms. Serafin I don't think really learns much of anything ever. Ignoring how wacky and insane how conspiracy theory is about Muslims imposing Shariah law on the rest of the country I don't see how in just 20 years we could even get to the premise for how she proposes they will do it.

It is true in 20 years whites will most likely not be the majority in the US anymore but in that same time period Muslims, not just Arabs, are not going to grow as a group by that much. I would take a whild guess and say she is one of those Birthers who think Obama is a secret Muslim too.


A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke?s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.

Radicalization of alienated Muslim youths is a real threat, Mr. Bagby said. ?But the youth we worry about,? he said, ?are not the youth that come to the mosque.?

In central Tennessee, the mosque in Murfreesboro is the third one in the last year to encounter resistance. It became a political issue when Republican candidates for governor and Congress declared their opposition. (They were defeated in primary elections on Thursday.)
 
The reality is that the Cordoba House, if built, will certainly never advance acceptance of Islam in New York.
You base that on what, exactly?

I almost threw my laptop across the room reading those comments.

I'm debating the "rightness" of it from a moral and ethical standpoint. A practical one as well... do you really think, given the significant opposition to Cordoba House, that it helps things?
There is nothing to debate there. Like Mitlov alluded to; that many Americans think that Muslims=terrorists is completely irrelevant to the construction of the mosque. Subjective notions of morality or "rightness" have no bearing on Rauf's right to build Cordoba House. If people weren't so goddamned bigoted and ignorant they'd realize that (at the very least) this is an opportunity to prove that we believe in our Constitution. Not just pay it lip service when it's convenient or "right".

Ms. Serafin I don't think really learns much of anything ever. Ignoring how wacky and insane how conspiracy theory is about Muslims imposing Shariah law on the rest of the country I don't see how in just 20 years we could even get to the premise for how she proposes they will do it.
I'm sure if you asked her last week what the biggest threat to America is it would've been illegal immigrants running drugs, killing cops and taking over the southwest. Or whatever Limbaugh was ranting about. People like that make me sick. She could actually do some research; instead she just gobbles up some soundbites and spews them back.
 
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?As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,? Ms. Serafin said. ?I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.?

Yes, yes...we have one vote in the House already...only 217 more to go...

The pieces are all falling together bwahaha
 
You base that on what, exactly?
I'm curious about this, too. I think I see what he's saying, in that you can't "force" people to be tolerant or rational, but you have to wonder how long they'll presumably contribute to the surrounding area before people finally just accept them.
 
Why, the freedom to be xenophobic bigots, of course. They're free to bitch and moan all they want. Really, they are, and you can't do anything about it (just like how they can't do anything about the "ten story mosque" which isn't actually a ten story mosque).
 
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