Sacrilege at Ground Zero

I have been watching the furore over the "Ground Zero mosque" with a great deal of bemusement.  The reason for my puzzled expression over this plan is because the liberal arguments for having a mosque/community centre at Ground Zero are so ridiculous that they would be laughable, if it were not for the fact that the plan is going ahead.

And now Obama has waded in, predictably supporting the building of the Islamic Community Centre on the site of the massacre of 3,000 Americans by Islamic fundamentalists.  While I am quite happy to watch the President commit political hari-kari, it is absurd for him to pretend that this is a debate about religious freedom and constitutional values rather than his fetish for pandering to any supposedly "persecuted" minority or interest group.  No other minority receives more snivelling apologies and grovelling from the President than Islam does - a group whom he sees as permanently attacked by America.  As always, he is wrong.

The idea that this is about religious freedom is obviously nonsensical to anyone who thinks about the issue for more than thirty seconds.  No-one against the Islamic centre is denying Islamic freedom to worship and no-one is denying the building of mosques in America.  Everyone has freedom of religion, but they do not have freedom to build anything anywhere they choose.  It is not about constitutional rights, but it is about issues of sensitivity, and of appropriateness.  We would recognise that Japanese flags at Pearl Harbour, or an anti-abortion centre at the site of a bombed abortion clinic destroyed by extremists would be inappropriate, yet denying permission for both would not be denying freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

A real President would condemn the proposal as grossly insensitive, and as insulting to all Americans.  He would recognise what damage such a move could do to Islamic relations, and he would question the motives of those who intend to build the centre.  A President who does not sincerely ask the question, "Why, out of all the places in America to build a mosque, why does it have to be there?" is not someone worthy of the office.

Those are my thoughts on the issue, but I couldn't possibly blog on the subject without mentioning Charles Krauthammer's excellent article of the same title as this blog post.  He dissects the issue with great expertise and it is well worth a read.

This issue is certainly about the Islamic community centre, and yet it is also about President Obama.  His support for this centre gives us another view into his hard-left mindset.  It shows once again that he always sees America as the real enemy in the world, and therefore he feels that he must apologise, grovel and submit to anyone he perceives as being wronged by "American Imperalism."  The enormous amount of anger directed at Obama over this issue, even within his own party, shows that once again his views are not the views of the American people.