updated
August 22, 2010
Fareed Zakaria discusses the 9-11 mosque controversy with WSJ Bret Stephens and Peter Beinart from America Foundation, which happens to be chaired by barry’s good friend Mr Google Eric Schmidt.
Beinart compares the building of the 9-11 mosque so close to ground zero to having a Catholic Church in a gay neighborhood in San Francisco. And then tries to muddy the issue by bringing up mosque protests across the US. Not relevant to this discussion but certainly furthers the narrative that it’s all about tolerance and the Constitution.
In what “gay neighborhood” in SF were close to 3000 gays murdered by non-gays just because they were gay and happened to be in the building?
And just how many gays will be welcome at this alleged Islamic outreach center when gays are being executed in Muslim countries just for being gay?
Imagine this conversation taking place in 1953 Pearl Harbor with American Nazis wanting to build a 13 story whatever to promote outreach and understanding. Imagine that happening now.
Have to give it to Mr Stephens for his calm – much interrupted – comments. Beinart comes off as an illogical agitated barry shill whose talking point was gays gays gays when gays can’t even serve in his commander in chief’s military and are openly discriminated against with the full knowledge of the very same commander in chief.
Note there is never any discussion of Sharia – like there never is with these mosque discussions – because how could barrypeople defend that when barry himself hasn’t spoken out against it?
My question for Beinart: If mr holiman behind the mosque is promoting tolerance and “moderate” Islam, which does not exist, why does he think it’s ok for Muslim women to have no personal or parental rights and for girls as young as 8 to be sold to pedophiles under the guise of “marriage”?
Full transcript follows
CNN FAREED ZAKARIA:There has been a lot of shouting and screaming on cable news about the mosque or Islamic center in lower Manhattan. And if you’re looking for that here, you have come to the wrong place. I want to have an intelligent conversation with intelligent people. So joining me now, Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing editor at “TIME,” and Bret Stephens, of course the foreign affairs columnist for “The Wall Street Journal.” Both of you have written about this topic. Bret, let me allow you to lay your position out, because it’s not exactly Newt Gingrich’s.
BRET STEPHENS, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, “WALL STREET JOURNAL”: No, not quite. But my position, I guess, is twofold.
On the one hand, I’m not going to make an argument that Imam Rauf, the man who wants to have the mosque on Park Place, doesn’t have a complete constitutional and legal right to have it. He does. So that’s — let’s put that to one side.
The other question is — and I think the more serious question is — well, does this mosque really advance the purposes that he advertises? That is to say, interfaith understanding, dialogue, a new face for Islam in a very sensitive area. And my sense is that it fails on most of those counts, and that he ought to, in the interests of discretion, in the interests of interfaith dialogue, in the interests of having some kind of compromise position with what turns out to be an overwhelming majority of Americans, reconsider the location of the mosque.
ZAKARIA: What do you think, Peter?
PETER BEINART, SR. FELLOW, AMERICA FOUNDATION: With all due respect, I don’t really understand the argument. I mean, all over America we have religious institutions that set themselves up near neighborhoods where the vast majority of people in those neighborhoods would profoundly disagree, even find offensive their views. If a Catholic church wants to set up near a gay neighborhood in San Francisco, we don’t say yes, you have the right, but let’s start asking you a whole series of questions about your particular set of views on gay rights, and in the name of sensitivity, we ask you not to build. People just build. It seems to me you can’t divorce the right to do it from the ability to exercise that right, particularly in a context in which we now have people protesting mosques all over the country, very, very far from Ground Zero.
And if these people are essentially to give in, it seems to me it sends a message all over the place that, well, maybe there shouldn’t be mosques near military bases because, after all, so many people died at the hands of Muslims there. We open up a very, very dangerous can of worms, and I don’t think sugarcoating it by saying they have the right but they should in the name of sensitivity not do it, I don’t think that gets us very far.
ZAKARIA: Isn’t –
STEPHENS: Well, just briefly, an interesting set of poll numbers. On the one hand, a clear majority of Americans have said that they wouldn’t mind having a mosque two blocks from where they live, which is to say just as this mosque is two blocks from Ground Zero. On the other hand, a majority of Americans also think this particular mosque shouldn’t be two blocks from Ground Zero. And it’s not the same thing as having a Catholic church in a gay neighborhood or — the analogy doesn’t quite work. This is a –
BEINART: Why not?
STEPHENS: Sorry?
BEINART: Why not?
STEPHENS: Well, look, Ground Zero has a distinctive quality that’s shared by very few other locations. Let’s imagine another scenario. Japan is now essentially a pacifist nation. It’s fully redeemed itself from the events of the Second World War. Let’s imagine the Japanese government, in the spirit of outreach, wants to put up a sort of Japanese outreach cultural center across the street from the Pearl Harbor Memorial, or the German government decides that it’s going to put up a tolerance center across the street from one of the concentration camps in Poland. And people objected to it because it’s a sensitive thing. And it’s not necessarily a rational issue, but it’s real, it’s prevalent. Most — I would be very surprised if the German government decided to put up the German –
ZAKARIA: Isn’t another phrase for irrational sensitivities about large groups of people prejudice and bigotry?
[key word: irrational]
STEPHENS: No, because look, there are a lot of — there are a number — I mean, some of them are. Some of them fall into some different category. You know, this is an event where a lot of people feel very strongly that this mosque ought not to be in this particular place.
BEINART: But the fact that a lot of people feel –
STEPHENS: It’s a fact you have to contend with. And the fact that 63 percent of Americans feel that way doesn’t make those 63 percent bigots.
BEINART: But I don’t think we should make moral decisions based on the polls. If Japanese people need a place to pray — I mean, I think this is about prayer and religious liberty — and in Hawaii, near Pearl Harbor, that’s fine. It seems to me we do not deny people the right to religious institutions because other people of the same faith victimized people.
[The Japanese people are a people of honor and would never consider such a thing and that is the crux of the argument.]
ZAKARIA: Bret, these people own the Burlington Coat Factory, which is the building in which they want to build this cultural center. There are already people praying there. So is it already, you know — I mean, is it already offending your sensibilities as we sit?
[they do not own it - they are leasing it]
STEPHENS: It’s not a question of offending sensibilities or my sensibilities. It’s a question about offending a certain sense. And it has something to –
ZAKARIA: Does it offend yours?
STEPHENS: Well, I don’t know. I think the judgment there is still — I’d have to sort of withhold my judgment. And I wrote a column to that effect. For example, if he has this center, and we have a place where lesbian and gay Muslims feel comfortable, I would feel much better about this place because of the treatment of lesbian and gays in many Islamic countries. If women feel genuinely comfortable there, I’d feel much better about it. But what –
ZAKARIA: This is going to really endear you to Sarah Palin.
STEPHENS: Well, I’m not trying to endear myself.
BEINART: With all due respect, do we ever ask these questions? Do we ever say about a church or a synagogue, well, are gay people welcome here? Are they comfortable here?
STEPHENS: You don’t?
BEINART: No. In fact, in many forms of Judaism and Christianity, as you know, gay people are not allowed to participate openly in the service. Women are not allowed to participate equally in the service. And we say if that’s your theology, you go ahead and do it. If we don’t agree with it, we don’t go to your church or synagogue. That’s the basic American principle.
Once you start going down a laundry list of, well, do you agree with us on this question, do you agree with us on this question, it seems to me you’ve opened a can of worms. I mean, we would never, ever tolerate that, it seems to me, for non-Muslims in this country, and that seems to me a profound double standard.
[THIS IS NOT ABOUT GAY PEOPLE AND IT IS NOT ABOUT THE BUILDING OF OTHER PLACES OF WORSHIP IN OTHER PARTS OF THE US.]
STEPHENS: Look, all the time we are asking, particularly in your corner of the media, asking serious questions about the kind of stuff that’s being preached in Evangelical churches, what Pat Robertson had to say –
BEINART: But not to say close down the church.
STEPHENS: — in the immediate wake of 9/11, that this was due to immorality in America and so forth.
BEINART: But I’m not saying he can’t have his church.
STEPHENS: I’m not saying he can’t have his church either. And I’m not saying he can’t have his mosque. I’m not talking about rights. I think we’re talking past one another, Peter, and this is what I’m trying to get at.
This is not a matter of — the right and wrong of it does not simply extend to the constitutional questions.
BEINART: No. But what I’m saying is –
STEPHENS: The rights of it are indisputable, and I’m not debating you on that subject.
BEINART: No, but I think this is a distinction without a difference. If you say that people have the right, but they shouldn’t take advantage of that right, in fact, it seems to me you’re denying them that right. [BAD LOGIC] And I think it will be a really dangerous turning in this country if we now have basically every imam around the United States who wants to build a mosque is given a questionnaire of 20 questions about their political views, and we say if we agree with 17 of them, you can allow people to worship here.
ZAKARIA: On that note, we are going to have to close this debate. We’ll try and maybe revive it again.
