Freedom of Religion

I usually avoid religion as a topic due to its emotive as opposed to its rational nature. I already break the other taboos usually associated with it by talking about politics and finance and that gives me more than enough opportunities to shoot myself in the foot.

So despite my reservations I have a few comments on the plans to build a mosque near "Ground Zero".

My first reaction to the response of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to turn down an application to "save" a questionable building as a means of blocking a group intending to build a mosque near "Ground Zero" was emotional and frankly very negative.

My negative response was initially aimed at the Commission because I incorrectly thought that they were making a decision on the mosque. That misperception on my part might be because the article I was reading wanted me to blame the commission. It is after all a traditional albeit liberal organisation. The press was quick to blame them for the mosque.

Now the Commission was asked to give a ruling on the architectural merit of the old Burlington Coat Factory building. They didn't okay the mosque. They d-kayed the request to save an old 19th century structure because it did not meet their criteria.

The fact is that a group intending to block the construction of a mosque chose the Landmark Commission as their path to obstruction can't be blamed on the Commission. Granted, this mosque is to be built on a very sensitive location, chosen in my opinion to push as many buttons as possible on the right and on the left. But the permission to build the mosque is not the responsibility of the Commission.

What really annoys me is that this discussion has immediately turned into a Republican (anti) and Democrat (pro) confrontation. Either our right to freedom of religion exists or it doesn't. If it does, than even though I deplore the idea of a mosque being built at this location, there is no legal and certainly no constitutional justification that I know of as to why it should be prohibited.

Or is there? I don't know but somewhere we as citizens all have a form of social contract with our way of government which sometimes explicitly, but always implicitly requires us to uphold our constitution which I understand to mean that although we may seek to make amendments to the Constitution, we are not allowed to plan let alone undertake to overthrow it by violent means.

Now I understand that this is very treacherous ground that I am treading and I realise that for those on the left I am suddenly a religious bigot and for those on the right, well who knows.

What I do know is that I believe that the real responsibility of American citizens is to know that we have a separation of church and state and that the rule of law is civil, not religious. Many people may find it difficult to understand this and allow themselves to get caught up with the fact that we swear on a bible and the name of god is invoked in many instances-the pledge, oaths etc.

It doesn't really matter. It is almost a figure of speech. What we are swearing is to uphold the constitution or to tell the truth. Our Freedoms are designed to live and let live.

I would contend that proselytising, be it of a religion, or a political belief with no room to allow two religions/beliefs to exist concurrently is the real problem.

The sooner we get that message across the better-regardless of the religion, and regardless of the political belief.