Joseph Bottum makes several powerful points regarding the constitutional independence of religion, but because he begins with some assumptions about the proposal for the building project that is inaccurate, he thus irritatingly casts into question the validity of the rest of his observations. He characterizes the project as a mosque, and offensive because of that when it is quite a bit more than that.
He accords little weight to the fact that the sponsoring entity is a sect of Islam that is notable, at least among those with any general knowledge of Islam, for being moderate. His conclusions regarding the offensiveness of the proposal seem to be based on assumptions about the opinions of Muslims all over the world.
This assumes that Muslims are completely uniform in their opinions and perspectives. This would be considered bigotry if it were applied to any other demographic group. Apart from these three issues, he offers a complex and insightful view of the tension between religious freedom and governmental authority in the USA.
The author begins with what is an error of description. His characterization of the project as primarily a “mosque” (four times on the first page), does not match what was proposed at the time, or what is being built. The proposed project is an Islamic Cultural Center, with a mosque on one floor of the sizable building that also houses a variety of other functions.
This differs from, for example, a mosque with classrooms in the basement, as in the mosque on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC. To be fully credible, the author needs precision in the terms he uses in discussing the issue, in the same way, that one would avoid calling a church a cult.
There are already other mosques in the city of New York, as the author notes (Bottum). If this project is “wildly offensive” as Bottum suggests, then why are the other mosques not offensive as well (Bottum)? The logical extension of this assertion would be to tear down all the mosques in Manhattan, or perhaps in all five boroughs because of their very existence offends. This is not reasonable or practical.
The author also shortchanges the fact that the “organizers of the mosque…are moderate, with a history of intra-religious cooperation”. First, this seems to be a misprint of ‘inter-religious cooperation,’ because one would be hoping for collaboration between faiths.
There is only one other reference to the actual sect of Islam that is involved. The author notes the organizers’ claim that they “hold a different kind of Islam,” and then dismisses that assertion (Bottum). The Sufi sect is distinctive, and their claims of difference should not be dismissed so casually in a serious discussion.
Despite these weaknesses, the article makes a powerful case for seeing this situation as an example of the complexity of democracy’s relationship with religion. For example, the author points out interesting inconsistencies in the local government’s and the Port Authority’s response, in not immediately allowing a destroyed Greek Orthodox church to be reconstructed nearby.
The author additionally makes a note of the ambivalence and even confusion that President Obama expressed over the issue (Bottum). The most powerful statement in this article is “Real democracy in messy” (Bottum).
There is, the author convinces us, a conflict between the urge to control and exclude, on the one hand, and the constitutional instruction to keep hands off religious institutions. This may apply even to those that are, in Bottum’s phrase, “bloody-minded” (Bottum). Despite some inaccuracies and dismissals of what could be key facts, the author captures this critical fact and brings it to our attention dramatically.
Works Cited
Bottum, Joseph. “Holy War over Ground Zero.” First Things 2010. Web.