Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Reaching closure (at least as to substance of the anti-mosque arguments)

I do not want to turn MoJ into the "mosque near Ground Zero blog," but I do think this is an issue that is close to the heart of this blog's mission, so I want to take one more stab at clarifying the potential (non-bigoted) opposition arguments.  It seems to me that there are four:

1) Muslims share some degree of collective guilt for 9/11 due to some element(s) within their tradition's teaching, the failure to sufficiently condemn 9/11 using resources wtihin the tradition, or some other reason related to the nature, teachings, and/or practice of Islam. 

2) The particular Muslims who are proposing Park51 share some degree of guilt for 9/11, not due to their status as Muslims, but due to some specific acts or omissions that they have committed as Muslims. 

3)  Even if #1 and #2 are false, fallible human beings, when faced with evils committed in the name of a religion / group / movement, will tend to attribute guilt to other members of that religion / group / movement, and thus those other members should exercise self-restraint in a way that would be more consistent with #1 being true, even if it is not actually true.  

4) Even if Muslims in general, and these Muslims in particular, do not share in the guilt for 9/11, there is something about Islam that exacerbates, in an ongoing way, the hurt Americans feel as a result of 9/11, and Americans are justified in feeling this way.  Unless someone can articulate that justification, I think #4 veers directly into bigotry. 

As for the other three, I reject #1, and I have not seen evidence to persuade me of #2.  The unjustified attribution of guilt under #3, though not necessarily bigoted, seems to be a dicey ground for moving the mosque, as actions consistent with collective guilt would seem to be bolster the perception of collective guilt.  Are there any other non-bigoted arguments against the mosque?   

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/08/reaching-closure-at-least-as-to-substance-of-the-antimosque-arguments.html

Vischer, Rob | Permalink

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I think that Chris Eberle, at one point in this long series of exchanges, made the argument (in response to Paul Horwitz) that the mosque project should not proceed *given the aims of the people who support it*. That is, if the aims are, at least in (significant) part, to foster dialogue and understanding among people of different cultures or religions, this particular project will be counterproductive in doing just that.

I am only reporting what I think is an additional non-bigoted, pragmatic (that is, not principled) argument against this mosque project, not endorsing it here.

I am, however, re-endorsing my own first comment at the very beginning of this discussion a few days back, in response to your thought that there was not likely to be disagreement among readers of MOJ on this issue. :)