Between a Mosque and a Hard Place

Let’s say that Christians decided that it is important to have a Church overlooking Dachau, a German concentration camp where 100,000s of Jews and others were exterminated . Would that be wrong?

On one hand just because the Nazi’s of Germany happened to be both from a Christian nation and expressing an extreme manifestation of Antisemitism is not a reason to besmirch the whole Christian faith 60 years later.

At the same time it would be in very bad taste and completely unnecessary. Not because the Church was directly responsible for the Holocaust, but because there is an association. Thankfully the Church has not placed Jews in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between commonsense-respect or being labeled anti-Christian.

Yet what would happen if the Church did insist on building a towering church overlooking Dachau BEFORE the actual Dachau memorial was constructed, say in 1955? Then Jews would be forced to choose between being seen as unjustly stereotyping all Christians or feeling that the memory of their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters was not receiving the respect it deserved. After all most individuals visiting the site would easily make a hurtful connection between the Cross, Antisemitism, and the Nazis.

Why then have some in the American-Muslim community placed us, average Americans, in the uncomfortable and unnecessary position of choosing between the victims of horrific Islamic-terror and our values of absolute tolerance?

Who gains from building a Mosque 15 stories above the site of ground-zero, BEFORE ground-zero and the wounds that it opened recover? Bigots will become more bigoted, stereotypes will be affirmed, and many victims will feel once again victimized. Is there no location available for 100 million elsewhere in Manhattan?

How can the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba (this term has very sinister connotations, accidentally?) Initiative, be so sure that they can raise the 100 million necessary to follow thru on this project? Are there so many supporters of this project IN our country? If not who is funding this and why?

Perhaps it is a ploy to “reveal” Americas anti-Muslim and hypocritical nature, and was never intended to actually be built, or even a right-wing conspiracy to galvanize anti-Muslim sentiment in America. Or a left-wing conspiracy to force America to accept Islam while affirming American values to the rest of the world.

Whatever the warped meaning, they, whoever they are, have put us between a Mosque and a hard place.