i'm all for freedom of speech. i believe it and i realize that it is difficult to pick and choose just what is considered free speech. in these times, there is hate speech (racial or against GLBT), and sexual harassment in the form of speech and one that is most definitely not spoken of too often is religious hate speech. though, now, it seems to be on every news station and every paper in the country, because one man, one church believe that it is their right to burn the religious book of another faith. what happened to equality for all? and not labeling an entire group of people as extremists because of what a very small percentage of people of that same religion have previously done? if this is how we practice things here, than by that same logic there should be no male catholic priests, ever, because they are ALL child molesters, right? and all baptists ministers are thieves all steal from their congregation. and all mormons practice polygamy, right? OBVIOUSLY we know these things NOT to be true! so, why can we as a nation give other religious leaders and religions that are considered "home based religions" the benefit of the doubt and understand that a few to don't mean many, and definitely do not mean all, but we seem unable to do this for the muslim religion? why?
no one in this nation would stand for the burning of the bible or the book of mormon, correct? so, how it is acceptable for the burning of the qur'an?
a few other things i'd like to point out:
it's not even a mosque they want to build in NYC, it's a freakin' community center! pretty much the equivalent of a YMCA.
the muslim faith and it's followers are NOT all extremist in nature!
doing things like this is just going to make us look more ignorant and intolerable than we already do. it will just make things worse. can we not put the matches down and come sit down at the table and act like grown-ups?!?!?! this country came about because of the want and desire for freedom of religion, well that and not wanting to pay taxes. but still, the freedom of religion is a pretty big foundation of our nation.
president obama said - "If he's listening, I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans. That this country has been built on the notion of freedom and religious tolerance." - couldn't have said it better myself.
The Charlie Calendar Lives On!
2 months ago
those people down in florida are nutso. and even after general petraeus said this stunt could mean that more american soldiers would lose their lives, they're still doing it.
ReplyDeletethankfully right wing leaders are coming out against it (although most initially balked at doing so---wouldn't want to scare off their base and lose elections!), so maybe they can be desuaded, but the fact that a group of people thought this was a good plan of action to begin with scares me. and the reason why so many fundamentalists feel this way about muslims is because it's not a religion based in christianity---scared of what they don't understand. and if you're a religious extremist, being a xenophobe comes with the territory.
Good post! I agree - that dude is crazy. I mean, who even thinks up that kind of shit?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I understand both sides of the argument in regards to the Ground Zero thing, I think the group should be allowed to do what they choose. I hope it doesn't cause any violence once it's built - which I'm sure it will. That sucks. It sucks that it's turned into a major issue of religion. I just hope and pray that all of this doesn't turn into some retarded religious war one day.