The Golden Rule?

Since I last wrote, tensions have climbed around the building of the Islamic Community Center, Park 51, or the Ground Zero Mosque. Over the past week, another issue has developed: A religious group in Florida plans to burn Qu’rans in protest of the building of Park 51. Some politicians, like Sarah Palin, have come up with the following argument: If it is within our First Amendment Rights to build a Mosque near Ground Zero, does that mean it’s also acceptable for the group who is burning Qu’rans to do so? Or conversely, if it shouldn’t be right to do one thing, it should not be right to do the other (by application of the ‘golden rule.’)

So the question remains: beyond having the right to build at 51 Park Place, is it a good idea? Is burning Qu’rans is definitively wrong if people also have a ‘right’ to do that?

Under the American Constitution, there is both a ‘right’ to build the Mosque, and there is also a ‘right’ to burn Qu’rans. The Constitutionality of these issues remains undisputed. Our conversation must address the idea of responsible behavior.

Actions can be morally wrong if they put innocent parties in a precarious situation. It is profoundly irresponsible to hold a “Burn a Koran Day” on September 11th, particularly by a religious leader advocating for the truth of Christianity. An act like this buttresses the extremist voices within Islam. It is an act of hatred of one group of human beings towards another and fuels the fires of extremism and irrationality on both sides. It puts everyone in a more precarious situation. For the sake of the American soldiers in Iraq (like the one I have been writing back and forth with), these acts are plainly irresponsible.

However, building a community center a few blocks away from Ground Zero is not comparable to an act designed expressly to inflame tensions. The community center aims to promote religious tolerance. It will help revitalize a neighborhood in need of revitalization. This is not acting irresponsibly or irrationally. It does not put others in harms way. Worse yet, moving the location of the potential Islamic Community Center would validate claims of Islamic extremists that the West systematically persecutes Muslims.