While listening to NPR yesterday afternoon, I heard the phrase "Ground Zero Mosque". Lauren and I turned to each other and almost shouted, "It's not a mosque!" It's an Islamic Cultural Center, and it's a few blocks away from Ground Zero. (There is a mosque quite close to Ground Zero already. It's been there for over 40 years.) I must admit, I've paid some attention to this debate and I'm torn about my feelings. I'm pro religious freedom, and fear that any limitation on that freedom is a slippery slope. I also think it's poor PR for the moderate Muslim majority, as Americans are still understandably upset about 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ongoing tensions with Iran. Good people will disagree on this issue, and I'm completely fine with that. What I'm concerned about is the dissemination of false ideas. Words matter. Using the correct terminology really matters when honestly framing an intellectual debate. Let's tackle it like an SAT question:
Mosque is to Islamic Cultural Center as Temple is to:
a) the Mossad
b) the Israeli army
c) training ground for radical Jews
d) the JCC
The correct answer, boys and girls, is d) the Jewish Community Center. That's right, the home of lecture series on Jewish life, basketball leagues and basket weaving classes. Also, there is often a preschool. Most of the members are Jewish, though I belonged to one for years and am not a Jew. I generally like Jews. They are nice.
I have no interest in telling you how you should feel about an Islamic Cultural Center being build a few blocks from Ground Zero. I just ask that we stop screaming "They're building a Mosque on Hallowed Ground!" No. No, they're not. Until we can speak honestly, using our big-boy words, this debate isn't going to get anywhere.Labels: cultural center, ground zero, honest, islam, JCC, Lezli Goodwin, mosque, words
