The Mosque at Ground Zero Chuck Colson

The Mosque at Ground Zero
Sense and Sensibility

August 6, 2010 Chuck Colson

Earlier this week, the proposed New York City mosque at ground zero
cleared its final hurdle. Nothing seems to stand in the way of its
construction.

I am appalled that peace-loving Muslims would want to do this on what
is, for most Americans, hallowed ground. I am even more appalled that
the mayor of New York is in favor of the idea.

It would be like the Japanese building a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor!
At a speech in front of the statue of liberty, Mayor Bloomberg made the
case for the mosque on the grounds of tolerance. But tolerance isn't the
issue here. And certainly not tolerance as Bloomberg means it. Tolerance
used to mean listening respectfully to others' opinions, even when you
disagree. Tolerance as Bloomberg understands it, means "I won't say no
to you for anything you want, and you don't say no to me for anything I
want."—The ultimate expression of political correctness, and the
most certain formula for moral chaos.

But the construction of the mosque at ground zero is not about
tolerance. And it isn't about religious liberty. This is about prudence:
the good sense to do what is right. That's one of the four classic,
cardinal virtues given to the West.

Let me give you an example. It isn't a violation of tolerance or
religious liberty when a local zoning commission tells a church, or a
synagogue, that it cannot build a sanctuary in a residential
neighborhood. Parking issues, traffic, could adversely affect the
neighborhood. So, local government can make the prudent decision to tell
the church to build somewhere else.

So it would not be an act of intolerance to deny the construction of a
mosque at a certain location—particularl y one, ground zero, where
the mosque will serve as a daily reminder to New Yorkers of the
terrorists, who, motivated by their Islamo-fascist beliefs, killed 3,000
innocent people in the name of Islam.

Go build the mosque somewhere else.
Earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bill McGurn
wrote about a marvelous example of prudence in a similar situation
during the early 1990s. Catholic nuns had moved onto an abandoned
building at Auschwitz—the site of the Nazi death camp—to pray
for peace and the victims of the Holocaust. The Jewish community was
quite outraged.

Although the nuns had the legal right to be at Auschwitz, Pope John Paul
II intervened. Recognizing Jewish sensitivities, he ordered the nuns to
move somewhere else to carry on their work. And they did.

Because I believe that the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving
citizens who do not support terrorism, I can't imagine why they would
want to tempt us to think otherwise by building a mosque at the site
where their co-religionists perpetrated the most barbaric acts of modern
times.

If they—and Mayor Bloomberg—don' t have the prudence to respect
the sensibilities of others, then Congress ought to step in. With the
upcoming elections, I'm sure your congressman will be all ears to your
concerns.

I understand the dilemma of religious freedom in this case. But as Bill
McGurn pointed out, "having the right to do something doesn't mean it's
the right thing to do."

The Pope understood that at Auschwitz, and the Muslim community ought to
understand it at ground zero.