Freedom of religion, yet no freedom for Muslims

In America, we, as people, are not allowed freedom of religion. Everyone must be Christian. If my friends or I are Muslim or Hindi, then others in our community look down upon us. We are not allowed to build places of worship or publicly acknowledge that we practice our religion.

You, as a reader, probably know that all I have written above is untrue. But yet, with the controversy surrounding the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York City, the untrue things that I’ve said above don’t seem so inconceivable.

Park51 is an Islamic mosque and community center being built in New York City. It has been the cause of much controversy because its proposed location is two blocks away from the site of the tragic Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Thus, it has been nicknamed the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

Opponents of the mosque say that it is insensitive to the victims and families that were affected by the 9/11 attacks. “Why does it have to be right there?” they say. “Why can’t it be somewhere else?”

I’ll tell you why. It’s because, in America, the country that is praised by its inhabitants for its freedoms and liberties, all citizens have freedom of religion. That means that if someone wants to build a mosque two blocks away from the site of the 9/11 attacks, then he or she can. It is that person’s right to do so.

There are people who agree with this argument; they admit that Muslims have the right to build the mosque. But, they say, building a mosque so close to Ground Zero is insensitive to the victims and their families; they have the right to build the mosque, but they really shouldn’t.

Now, if the mosque were being built by Al-Qaeda, then I would consider it to be insensitive. But it’s not. The mosque is being built by patriotic, law-abiding, Islamic-Americans who had nothing more to do with 9/11 than you or I do.

The problem with saying that the mosque is insensitive to the victims of the attacks is that it generalizes all Muslims into one big group of terrorists; it’s like blaming all Muslims for the terrorist attacks when, in reality, the attacks were caused by a few extremists.

In America, we expect to be given the right to freedom of speech, freedom of press, and, of course, freedom of religion. But if we don’t allow this mosque to be built, then how free are we really?