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Originally Posted by tuffa
you're right about it not being a legal issue. i was more thinking about consistency, and it makes sense to me that someone would be for depicting mohammed and building the mosque. i think both of those positions are most in line with tolerating multiple religious and anti-religious perspectives. and i think religious and philosophical inclusiveness are important as American ideals. i'm not a huge fan of any religion, islam included, but i don't associate the wtc attacks with all of islam. i can respect the victims' feelings but i think victims who oppose this mosque are being irrational and maybe a little bigoted. and i worry that a lot of the criticism is coming not from victims but from political opportunists (i.e. palin).
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But one can tolerate various perspectives and still understand how their actions affect others.
The argument against Muhammad cartoons (which Keith has also made) is simple: depictions of Muhammad are rarely, if ever, artistically necessary, and one knows when one draws him that they are going to make a lot of people feel bad. They must then assess the importance of their work in light of the way it will make people feel, and potentially rework it so as to do less harm.
The same is true of the mosque in lower Manhattan. It has every right to be built there, but some of the victims will feel bad about it.
Some of the feelings are irrational, yes, or at least influenced heavily by emotion. However, they're still there, and they need to be accounted for.
I think there's plenty on either side of the debate here, but ultimately this isn't a rights issue. The rights here are clear, well-defined, and immutable. If the mosque moves it won't be a result of legal processes, because their rights are completely protected, and should be.
How one uses one's rights is not subject to protection from debate, though. Dr. Laura was wrong. Not because she went beyond her rights, but because she said something that she didn't need to say that caused emotional harm to a lot of people. That principle applies elsewhere.