No New Mosques

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Comment by Kinana on September 7, 2010 at 15:35

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/29481

The Iconoclast

Sunday, 5 September 2010

Mosque Projects Face Battles: NYTimes

John Schwartz writes in the NYTimes:

In disputes over the construction and expansion of mosques in California, New York, Tennessee and elsewhere, supporters of the projects tend to invoke constitutional principles of religious freedom.

But to experts in land-use planning, the area of law that directly concerns the controversies scattered across the nation, the way to resolve such conflicts is in a more modern document than the Constitution. These fights are often all but moot, from a legal perspective at least, because of a federal law with an ungainly acronym.

“Every planner and zoning lawyer I’ve talked to about this is saying the same thing — Rluipa,” said Daniel Lauber, a past president of the American Planning Association.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, whose initials are commonly pronounced Ruh-LOO-pa, was approved unanimously by Congress in 2000. Its chief sponsor was Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.
The law sets a high bar for any government action that would impose zoning or other restrictions on a religious institution. Any such action must serve a “compelling government interest” while also being “the least restrictive means” of furthering that interest, the law says.

This law also falls under the law on unintended consequences.
Despite the clear advantage that the law gives to religious institutions, disputes over the construction of mosques have emerged around the country.

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., an arson at the site of a mosque project has raised tensions. In Temecula, Calif., some mosque opponents brought dogs to a protest, thinking it would offend Muslims who believe the animals to be unclean. Backers withdrew the planned expansion of a mosque in Brentwood, Tenn., after critics raised their voices.

The opposition often reflects America’s complicated attitudes toward the Middle East, in which passions run high and even basic facts are treated as objects of contention. The conservative New English Review stated the fundamental question as “whether Islam is a religion or a political doctrine seeking domination with a thin veneer of religious practices.”

First, the attitude of Americans toward Islam in America is separate and distinct from our "complicated attitudes toward the Middle East." And as far as "basic facts" being "treated as objects of contention," I don't think is it out of place to question whether Islam's current classification as a religion is complete or correct. As Jerry Gordon put is very succinctly (as quoted above), Islam has a very large, even dominant, political component and in fact requires territorial sovereignty - as no other religion does. And while there is no doubt Muslims themselves believe Islam to be a religion, it has also been argued, and very convincingly, that millions of people believed in communism and Nazism with religious fervor and devotion. So belief in an ideological system alone should not be the criteria for classification as a religion.

Furthermore, our laws protecting religious freedom were enacted because religion as we have known it has been good for society. Religion has nurtured morality, strengthened the family, fostered public service and encouraged social harmony. Islam, on the other hand, is self-segregating, fosters ideas of Muslim supremacy and thereby sows seeds of social discord. Even its tradition of charitable giving is solely for the benefit of fellow Muslims and it utterly destroys the family through its adoption of polygamy. Polygamy cannot be tolerated without fatal damage to our social structure. The nuclear family is the basic social unit of our civilization.

And thirdly, it is certain that the Founding Fathers, when they wrote about "religion," were speaking of religion in the Judeo-Christian context. They did not mean to protect a religion that would do damage to their infant republic. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold the banning of polygamy in 1878 and as Norman Berdichevsky has pointed out, religious freedom is not, and has never been, an absolute in this country.

Islam is the duck-billed platypus of belief systems - a religio-socio-political ideology. It covers every aspect of life - personal, social, political and geo-political. The word religion, is not adequate. That, Mr. Schwartz, is a basic fact.

Comment by Alan Lake on September 7, 2010 at 10:13

Its such a joke when people want to put Islam into the category of "religion" (with all the legal exemptions that implies) - what simpletons!

Its also, curiously, an insult to Islam :-)