You broke it, you bought it.

This looks like "pick on Slate week", but it's just a coincidence that they're posting stuff that pushes my buttons. Unlike the last thing I wrote about, William Saletan is not being an idiot, it's the subject itself which catches a particular part of the zeitgeist.

The Ground Zero Mosque has been exceptionally polarizing, but most of the energy being expended is negative. To re-cap for posterity (e.g. the future when the links I might put in now won't work), a Muslim community centre/mosque is planned for a property a couple of blocks from the 9/11 attacks in NYC. For a lot of people, this is much too close.

I am one of them, but not from blind xenophobia; indeed, I know the significance to Islam of putting a mosque on conquered territory. A lot of other people feel the same way about it even if they know less history than I do, and this is the part which is increasingly being picked up by the media. To say that some of them (mainstream at least) are shocked by this is accurate, though "perplexed" is likely a better word. Politicians however make their livings by being in touch with public opinion, and more of them in the US particularly are coming down hard against this plan.

Saletan has this to say as his conclusion:

Ground Zero was just the beginning. The case against a mosque there has shifted from extremism to Islam. Now Republicans say their no-mosque rule extends only to Ground Zero, or three blocks from Ground Zero, or whatever exclusion zone the majority feels is appropriate. But the fire of enmity has already spread from terrorism to religion. I don't think New York can contain it.

This is true, and my amazement is that it's taken this long. Apologists keep prating that Islam is not to blame for things done in its' name, but it's no longer just cranks like me who aren't buying it. If Christianity still has to wear the Crusades and the Inquisition (and that's just a start), then Islam will have to work and mature to wash away the stain of violent jihad that is associated with it today. I would argue however that it is fundamentally damaged and this will not be possible.

There is NO separating a belief from the things done in the name of it, particularly if those things are written right into the book. Islamic terrorism isn't a few anti-abortion protesters; the Salafist inspired terrorism and oppression that troubles so much of the world, well, it troubles much of the world. This isn't a tiny radical fringe, this is a violent minority with influential religious opinion underpinning and the support of a sizable number of coreligionists.

The problem really is ideology of any stripe, but Islam is a big target because of what it inspires. Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, and the same place (modern version under the House of Saud) exports its' repressive Wahhabi doctrine throughout the world. (I will insert this for the sake of balance and an attempt at accuracy in terminology, but it changes the end results not one whit) As the keepers of the holiest sites in Islam, they are exceptionally influential morally, and due to all their oil money, in practical doctrinal terms.

Even the very name of the religion (see http://www.submission.org/islam/ ) tells you what it's all about. It has a DEATH SENTENCE for leaving it (apostasy), which should answer any remaining questions you have about why people are touchy about putting a mosque anywhere near where (muslim) religious idiots killed thousands of Americans and others.