Obama makes Ground Zero mosque his own
By embracing the mosque at Ground Zero, President Obama made it his own. And as his own, it will be an albatross around his neck.
At a glittering White House dinner marking the end of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, Obama made a strong appeal for religious liberty and tolerance.
Religious liberty for whom? Does one region in the world — even one — have a Muslim majority where religious liberty is enjoyed by anyone?
Right after 9/11, Michigan political science professor Muktedar Khan confronted his fellow Muslims. He said they all knew the U.S. was the best country in the world in which to practice Islam.
If they doubted that, he challenged his fellow believers to accept his offer of a one-way air fare to the Muslim-majority country of their choice.
He got no takers.
Religious liberty in California? When 5,836,072 Californians voted — including millions of Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons and Lutherans — to uphold marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman, Obama opposed them.
He did not think they should express their religious convictions in this way. When a single federal judge overruled those millions of voters, Obama did not step forward to defend religion and democracy.
Reli- gious liberty for Jews? When Ameri- can Jews showed their deep concern over the right of Jews in East Jerusalem to build apartment houses for their fellow Jews, Obama stiff-armed their concerns. He did not call it a “local issue.” He jumped into the controversy against the Jews building homes for Jews in a Jewish state.
Religious liberty for Catholics? Obama’s administration received urgent appeals from the nation’s Catholic bishops. Please, they said, pass national health-care reform but don’t force us to subsidize abortion, and don’t force Catholic practitioners to compromise their consciences.
Did Obama yield an inch to the bishops? Not one.
Religious liberty for evangelicals? When the Hastings Law Center kicked the Evangelical Christian Legal Society off campus in Berkeley, did Obama stand up for those evangelicals’ religious liberty? Did he support their freedom of association?
Not at all. What we see in this administration is the most se- lective defense of religious liberty in our history. Only Muslims’ religious liberty is being protected. Only their beliefs are respected by Obama.
What about the deeply held convictions of tens of millions of Americans? Obama claims to understand the “feelings” of Americans who have suffered “trauma” as the result of 9/11.
There you have it: Muslims have religious principles and beliefs we are all called upon to respect. But the rest of us have only emotions and feelings. We are, in short, not being reasonable.
Professor Obama appears to be ever-so-reasonable. He constantly looks for ways to lecture us about our constitutional obligations.
Justice Robert Jackson did not agree. The constitution, Jackson famously wrote, is not a suicide pact. Apparently, Obama thinks it is.
To allow a mosque within spitting distance of Ground Zero is to allow a triumphal arch for our jihadist enemies. It will be a recruiting poster for jihadists worldwide.
Imam Rauf is not the “moderate” Muslim he pretends to be. Even now, as he tours the Mideast on a junket financed by our State Department, he is seeking funds for his Ground Zero mosque from some of the same sources that have incubated jihadism.
Rauf has named the 13-story, $100 million Islamic “cultural center” he wants to build Cordoba House. That should be a hint.
Cordoba was the capital of Moorish Spain. For 700 years, Spanish Christians lived under the Muslim yoke. For seven centuries, they were mere dhimmis, lacking all religious, civil, and economic rights. Could we have a clearer indication of what Rauf wants here?
Do we want sharia law here? That’s the law they have in Saudi Arabia. Rauf is all out for sharia. If he succeeds in his life quest, Americans will lose every liberty — starting with our religious liberty.
Americans have every right to object strenuously to using religious liberty as a cloak to destroy religious liberty. No, Muslims do not have a right to build their Cordoba House near Ground Zero.
Every candidate for the House and Senate, and every candidate for state and local office, should be required to take a stand on this critical issue.
If you are willing to bring Cordoba House to Ground Zero, no place in America is safe from sharia law.
Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and American Civil Rights Union.







