Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishGrrl
Just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should....
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IG:
If I could trouble you for a couple of things:
1) What distance is far enough away? Is a mile far enough? Two miles? No where within the great NYC area? Is Jersey far enough away? If, in fact, the argument is that building this center would be insulting or insensitive, and the issue is that people were traumatized by 9/11 (which is true) then is there *anyplace* in the United States that can be far enough *not* to rile someone? I lost a old friend, a dear friend, in those attacks. Does that mean that Portland, OR is now also too close?
2) If the mosque would be troublesome/insulting/painful then isn't the fact that there is *already* a mosque, closer to the site than this community center will be, already traumatizing? Should that mosque be shut down?
3) If the mere presence of a mosque, which would be a reminder that there are Muslims, then isn't the mere *presence* of Muslims also insulting/painful? Should there be an exclusion zone around the WTC site where no Muslim is allowed to go?
4) Is Tennessee *also* too close to the WTC site? What about California? Is that also too close? I ask purely because mosques in both states have been opposed on the grounds that anywhere a mosque is built, that is a capitulation to Islam.
5) Can you find me a single historical instance wherein a religious minority was targeted for this kind of special treatment and it turned out well? Now, admittedly, I'm not a scholar of history and so my knowledge base is far from complete however, I can't think of a single time when this has turned out well.
6) If it is insensitive toward the people who died on 9/11 for this community center to be built, would it also be fair to say that it is insensitive for, just to take two examples, Christian churches to be anywhere there is a large GLBTQ population? Anyone who was there and everyone who has written history about the first two decades of the HIV pandemic firmly and justifiably places a non-trivial amount of responsibility for the deaths of so many gay men *squarely* at the church door? Along similar lines, would it be fair to say that given that about twice that number of blacks were lynched in the last century that it would be insensitive for white Southern Baptists to build churches near large populations of blacks?
If it isn't insensitive may I ask what the difference is?