Building a Mosque and Rebuilding a Church at Ground Zero

I am glad that the conversation concerning the mosque near Ground Zero has been clarified here on MOJ.  The question of religious liberty in this case really is so simple and obvious as to be almost uninteresting.  Of course the sponsors of the mosque have a constitutional right to build a place of worship on the site they have acquired, within the legitimate parameters of the state’s non-discriminatory regulatory authority.

 

Others have alluded to the controversy regarding the location of crosses and the Carmelite convent of nuns near the Auschwitz death camp, but I don’t think anyone has referred to William McGurn’s thoughtful column on the subject (here).  As McGurn suggests, a proper resolution of the dispute requires not simply the blunt invocation of rights, but the calm and measured exercise of prudence.

 

I agree with what Chris Eberle has said by way of reply to Paul Horwitz’s comments.  I would only make explicit what I think is implicit in his comments by adding that, unlike the soup kitchen at the church or the proposed expanded church facilities in Paul’s hypotheticals, prayer and the dialogue of reconciliation can be advanced elsewhere.  You feed the poor where you find them and you serve parishioners where they live in the community.

 

If the presence of the mosque is intended to promote peace and inter-religious dialogue, as its proponents suggest, then perhaps that dialogue should begin with a frank discussion of its location, including a careful listening to the non-discriminatory, non-Islamaphobic voices who oppose it. 

 

There may, however, be an interesting question of religious liberty with respect to the rebuilding of a Christian church at Ground Zero.  St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks (here), and although the Greek Archdiocese has been attempting to rebuild the parish church since that time it has encountered numerous bureaucratic hurdles that seem not to have impeded the construction of the proposed mosque (see here and here).