In this "bipartisan" age, where Democratic pusillanimity and Republican obstinacy work in tandem to undo all hopes for "change" conjured up in 2008, we must be grateful even for small victories - no matter how tentative and no matter how compromised. We should therefore welcome the defeat, so far, of efforts by Sarah Palin and her peers, and by that hapless guardian of Zion, the ADL's Abe Foxman, to prevent the construction of an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan; and also Federal Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling overturning California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage after the California Supreme Court had determined its constitutionality.
In a better possible world, houses of worship would never be welcome, but only tolerated as remnants of humanity's nonage. However the actual world is still full of believers determined not to face reality squarely, and we more enlightened folk have no choice but to deal with this stubborn fact. Thus there are times when expressions of solidarity with the faithful are appropriate, notwithstanding the fact that their purchase on reality is distorted and disabling. Mosques are no better or worse than churches or synagogues. But at least the mosque at Ground Zero makes a statement.
More...
0 comments
Post a Comment