Seems to me the paradox of the arguments made by those defending the building of the 'Cordoba' mosque is that they talk of how freedom of religion is central to the epoch making idea of liberty as enshrined in the American constitution and that to even hint at limiting those rights in the case of the ground zero mosque would threaten everything we hold dear - which prima facie seems ludicrous since America throughout its history has abused the rights of various groups and nonetheless done quite well for itself - no one seemed to mind lauding America as the great defender of liberty and democracy and the rights of man during WWII even though for instance Jim Crow laws still discriminated against blacks in the south regardless of what the constitution had to say about about the blessings of liberty - but aside from that, the paradox I'm struck by is that no one seems to want to address the fact that the motivation for the establishment clause sprang from a fear of religion - the founding fathers didn't want religion anywhere near government because they understood how dangerous such a confluence could be to the practice of democracy and therefore they had to guarantee the freedom of religion so government would have no excuse to try and exploit religious faith and vice versa - in other words the establishment clause isn't an expression that honors religion but rather an expression of great skepticism towards it. With that in mind, given that Islam does not believe or accept easily the separation of church and state and tends to be highly politicized, rather than being seen as an affront to the constitution opposition to the ground zero mosque can legitimately be viewed as something of an affirmation of the founding fathers inherent skepticism.
What people seem to be missing is that the whole point of guaranteeing broad freedoms for the religiously minded in the constitution was not to glorify god[s] and his faithful believers and the various dogmas they adhere to, but rather to control them because of the immanent threat they pose to freedom as a whole. The unfortunate irony is that in severing religion so boldly from politics like no nation had ever done or attempted the founding fathers it seems ended up heightening its importance for the social animals now set loose in the new world and in search of meaning - heightened to such a degree that religion is again perforce made political since no politician dare question the merits of believing in a heavenly father and the redemption of sins through the blood of his only begotten. The saving grace here - and this is very important - is that this native fervor of the faithful is largely symbolic once you move outside of the church - what I mean is, the overwhelming majority of Americans would not tolerate, no matter how strong their personal faith, the intrusion of religion into the public sphere beyond that symbolism - in short, something akin to sharia law or any number of other manifestations of Islamic overreach into the lives of citizens that actively disdains the rights and virtues of the individual would find little quarter in any true and coherent reckoning of America.
It seems to me that many of the arguments both for and aginst the ground zero mosque struggle to make sense because they can't or don't want to acknowledge the negative animus motivating much of the constitution - once you accept that the enshrined freedom of religion is actually an expression of fear and caution concerning the dangers of an organized belief in a creator then it becomes a much easier task to criticize the 'Cordoba Initiative' [cunning name that - can mean one thing to a Christian and something else entirely to a Muslim] since Islam quite clearly embodies the very thing the founding fathers were so disturbed by.
What people seem to be missing is that the whole point of guaranteeing broad freedoms for the religiously minded in the constitution was not to glorify god[s] and his faithful believers and the various dogmas they adhere to, but rather to control them because of the immanent threat they pose to freedom as a whole. The unfortunate irony is that in severing religion so boldly from politics like no nation had ever done or attempted the founding fathers it seems ended up heightening its importance for the social animals now set loose in the new world and in search of meaning - heightened to such a degree that religion is again perforce made political since no politician dare question the merits of believing in a heavenly father and the redemption of sins through the blood of his only begotten. The saving grace here - and this is very important - is that this native fervor of the faithful is largely symbolic once you move outside of the church - what I mean is, the overwhelming majority of Americans would not tolerate, no matter how strong their personal faith, the intrusion of religion into the public sphere beyond that symbolism - in short, something akin to sharia law or any number of other manifestations of Islamic overreach into the lives of citizens that actively disdains the rights and virtues of the individual would find little quarter in any true and coherent reckoning of America.
It seems to me that many of the arguments both for and aginst the ground zero mosque struggle to make sense because they can't or don't want to acknowledge the negative animus motivating much of the constitution - once you accept that the enshrined freedom of religion is actually an expression of fear and caution concerning the dangers of an organized belief in a creator then it becomes a much easier task to criticize the 'Cordoba Initiative' [cunning name that - can mean one thing to a Christian and something else entirely to a Muslim] since Islam quite clearly embodies the very thing the founding fathers were so disturbed by.