In 1999, two young men with very little fashion sense and a shocking number of guns took out their anger about various high school slights by killing thirteen people and then themselves.  This was among the least productive ways of registering one’s discontent since the first guy cut off his nose to spite his face, and the entire country was devastated.  About 98% of us mourned the pointless loss of life and grieved for the families, but a small number saw the murders as a means of making a political example, specifically, the political example about the right to own more guns.

About fifteen seconds after the shooting stopped, the NRA held a rally eleven miles from Columbine High School in which Charlton Heston mumbled something about his arthritis hands, and everyone shouted in unison about the importance of owning guns, which hasn’t been exactly clear in nearly 150 years.

The NRA’s point was that this situation would, unjustly, draw negative attention to guns, specifically the kind of attention that involves teenagers purchasing thousands of rounds of ammunition as easily as they bought Skittles.  To the gun lobby, and those who believe they may need to defend themselves from the government or roaming bands of rapists at any moment, this unfortunate situation risked birthing a political climate in which candidates could be elected by pledging to curtail the availability of guns, specifically guns that shoot 100 rounds per second and were last used in Vietnam which they feared would harm their ability to brag about owning such guns to their friends.

For most of this summer, when it hasn’t been publishing pictures of David Patterson that accentuate the fact that he has something very wrong with his eyes, the New York Post has been writing about the mosque/community center being proposed near ground zero.  Not being a New Yorker, and as someone who is more than comfortable saying I hate New York City, its hillarious superiority complex, and its unique aroma of Chinese food and urine, I’d pretty much left the fight on this issue up to people who cared, but after the President decided to get involved this week I realized it had become something more.

First amendment rights are the most sacred we have and the right to practice religion is one of the distinguishing factors between our great country and host of shitty ones.  Without religious freedom, Emily, my orthodox Jewish classmate wouldn’t have been able to miss approximately 138 days of school in fifth grade, my Seventh Day Adventist friends wouldn’t have been able to attend a school where they learned mostly about Adam and Eve which left them very confused for the first few years of high school, and I wouldn’t have been able to attend a misguided up-start church in a karate studio where there were fake knives and grenades on the walls.

American Muslims caught the shittiest of deals in 2001.  A widely-practiced religion was immediately labeled a religion of murder by most of the West after a few of its followers did the unspeakable in a confused attempt to please their god at the behest of a manipulative villain.  Since that time, one imagines life has not been easy for American Muslims and I have known many who have kept their faith and nativity private, even in well-educated circles where one hopes noone would have feared them or their beliefs.   

As great a history as we have of respecting religion and honoring civil rights, we also have a checkered past of slight overreactions to acts of war, such as the time we rounded up all Japanese people in California and sent them to prisons in Arizona after Pearl Harbor.

According to the New York Post, 70% of Americans disapprove of the mosque being built anywhere near “ground zero” which is exactly why the government needs to make sure it is allowed to happen.  Americans need to remember that what makes this country unlike Saudi Arabia is that the weather is significantly better, but also the fact that the government , sometimes after a great deal of injustice and several levels of appellate court s will honor your rights even when crappy New York papers spend all summer trying to curtail them.

Muslims have waited ten years to put their toe back in the water in Manhattan and their attempt to build a place of worship, while done for a similar purpose, is equally valid, and about fourteen trillion times less infuriating than the NRA’s choice to reiterate its rights on the doorstep of Columbine.  Those trying to build it are well aware of what happened in 1942, and know that a huge percentage of America dislikes and distrusts their religion.  I can hardly blame them for wanting to practice their faith in the open.  After all, there’s a much better chance this country turns punitive toward Muslims before gun owners, and let’s face it, Arizona sucks.