Now, that's how you protest.
Aug. 10th, 2010 09:09 amOn the drive into work this morning, I flipped through the channels and heard Glen Beck giggling over the idea that someone was proposing building a gay bar next to the Cordoba Islamic Center in New York City.
As some of you may know, a Sufi Muslim investor is proposing building an Islamic community center in NYC, arguably little different from the average Jewish community centers I've been seeing my whole life except, you know, about the second popular Abrahamic fanfic rather than the canon material. The center bought ground two or three blocks from the site of the World Trade Center construction site, and a huge number of right wing whackjobs have taken it upon themselves to denounce this as "Muslims creating a monument to their successful conquest of America." The most common refrain is that it's "too close," but no one will say how far is far enough. There's so much bullshit about this issue you need wings to stay above it. One Republican candidate for governor, a self-proclaimed small-government, tea-bagging libertarian type, said he'd use eminent domain to take the site away. IOKIYAR, I guess.
In contrast, the Republican mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, held a press conference in which he said that the Muslims were American citizens, they had the right to buy land, they had the right to build within the restrictions of New York's zoning codes, and they had the right to practice your religion, and this is New York if you don't like it tough, live with it. Good for him.
I agree with Mayor Bloomberg entirely. I actually don't care much about the issue, because I live in Washington State, thousands of miles from New York, and don't feel I have any right whatsoever to an opinion on what ought to happen there regarding zoning laws.
(David Frum thinks that the brouhahah brought on by the paranoid right will backfire entirely by bringing the Cordoba Center enough publicity that the developer will actually be able to afford building it. Apparently, he doesn't have quite the funding yet.)
The best response I've heard so far, though, is the gay bar. No, really. That's an ideal protest. It gives the Cordoba Center a chance to prove it's a tolerant institution-- hey, we have a gay bar next door!-- and the bar, with it's Islamic-friendly "no alcohol" floor will prove to be a popular place with gay Muslims and probably with any gay men in 12-step programs, alcoholism being a significant problem in gay urban centers.
And if it proves to be economically unviable, well there are lessons to be learned there about the limitations of protest.
As some of you may know, a Sufi Muslim investor is proposing building an Islamic community center in NYC, arguably little different from the average Jewish community centers I've been seeing my whole life except, you know, about the second popular Abrahamic fanfic rather than the canon material. The center bought ground two or three blocks from the site of the World Trade Center construction site, and a huge number of right wing whackjobs have taken it upon themselves to denounce this as "Muslims creating a monument to their successful conquest of America." The most common refrain is that it's "too close," but no one will say how far is far enough. There's so much bullshit about this issue you need wings to stay above it. One Republican candidate for governor, a self-proclaimed small-government, tea-bagging libertarian type, said he'd use eminent domain to take the site away. IOKIYAR, I guess.
In contrast, the Republican mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, held a press conference in which he said that the Muslims were American citizens, they had the right to buy land, they had the right to build within the restrictions of New York's zoning codes, and they had the right to practice your religion, and this is New York if you don't like it tough, live with it. Good for him.
I agree with Mayor Bloomberg entirely. I actually don't care much about the issue, because I live in Washington State, thousands of miles from New York, and don't feel I have any right whatsoever to an opinion on what ought to happen there regarding zoning laws.
(David Frum thinks that the brouhahah brought on by the paranoid right will backfire entirely by bringing the Cordoba Center enough publicity that the developer will actually be able to afford building it. Apparently, he doesn't have quite the funding yet.)
The best response I've heard so far, though, is the gay bar. No, really. That's an ideal protest. It gives the Cordoba Center a chance to prove it's a tolerant institution-- hey, we have a gay bar next door!-- and the bar, with it's Islamic-friendly "no alcohol" floor will prove to be a popular place with gay Muslims and probably with any gay men in 12-step programs, alcoholism being a significant problem in gay urban centers.
And if it proves to be economically unviable, well there are lessons to be learned there about the limitations of protest.
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