A word, mosque-wise, about moderation, the supposed or claimed moderate Muslim line of reasoning which the troubled and troubling mosque is putatively supposed to promote - the question, it seems to me, when it comes to moderation and the mixing of religion with politics, the question that needs to be answered is: for the citizens of any given state with whom or what does legitimate civil authority ultimately rest? For America and liberal democracies in general the answer is obvious, it's right there in the first three words of the Declaration of Independence - we, the people - the authority rests with us and we safeguard that authority by certifying through regular and open elections officials entrusted for a time to enact certain laws according to the wishes of a majority and in keeping with a permanent yet secular and mutable constitution that attempts to express as well as is possible the needs and rights and freedoms and obligations of every individual living under it and reflect as best it can the values and culture of the people that created it.
But for a theocracy such is not the case - true authority does not rest with the people and the people, if they are not apostates or heretics, would not consider it legitimate to claim it did - nor therefore could it rest with any Potemkin village government that the people may have been asked or commanded to elect for the purposes of carrying out quotidian but necessary functions - no, for a theocracy and the citizens who populate it the only true and legitimate authority is God and by extension the self-appointed clergy who decide how that authority is to be imposed and propagated.
And so, when it comes to Islam and moderation, the question to be answered, as far as we the free citizens of a liberal democracy are concerned, is: according to the dictates of your religion can a Muslim be a true Muslim outside of the bounds of a theocracy or, conversely, within the bounds of a philosophy that demands separation of church and state and not only asserts but celebrates the right of individuals to keep their own counsel? In other words, for a true Muslim with whom or what does legitimate civil authority ultimately rest? If the people behind the Cordoba initiative can answer that question in a straightforward manner without causing the average American to immediately reach for his gun and flag and, to an equal degree, without being branded a heretic or apostate or servant of Satan back home - then go ahead, build your Mosque.
Or, to streamline and expedite the approval process, one could simply request that the sponsors of the mosque support, in the name of promoting peace and goodwill between peoples of differing faiths of course, the building of a synagogue in Mecca. They sign on for that and I think we can come to an amicable agreement here.
But of course ever dyspeptic liberals would whinge and wail 'but we don't make other religions etc etc' - but I imagine that's because no other religion has threatened our existence and then followed through on those threats - and no other religion struggles so with the separation of church and state and the rights and freedoms of the individual to believe what they want, say what they want and do what they want - these things are fundamental to Western culture, they're not negotiable - you can talk in absolute terms about 'freedom of religion' but any honest reckoning would admit that that freedom is an expression of skepticism regarding religion and the harm it can do to the liberties we hold dear if politicized - and Islam not only wants to be political it in all likelihood needs to be political in order to function in accordance with its beliefs - so I doubt very much the founding fathers if roused from their slumbers would have much trouble holding Islam to a different standard.
