Eugene Robinson offers up some blunt talk:
Lies, distortions, jingoism, xenophobia — another day, another campaign issue that Republicans can use to bash President Obama and the Democrats. First it was illegal immigration. Now it’s the so-called Ground Zero mosque, which is not at all what its opponents claim.
First, it’s not at Ground Zero. The site in question is two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan; an existing mosque is just a few hundred feet more distant from the site of the collapsed towers. Second, while the planned building would indeed house a place of worship, it is designed to be more of a community center along the lines of a YMCA. Plans include a fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, bookstore, performing arts center and food court. Kebabs do not threaten our way of life.
As a commenter pithily noted the other day, calling this a mosque is like calling a casino in Las Vegas a cathedral because it has a wedding chapel.
eric
it is a mosque and it is at ground zero because the naysayers want it to so be. that is how their reality has worked for 30 years. look at their approach to science and foreign policy. “We make our own reality” is the GOP way.
spudvol
Alright Cole, let’s see you come up with a post for-
“Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict”
Tom
Ummagumma will now be my morning listening. It’s fitting because that word pretty much sums up how I feel about the “mosque” debate at this point.
Omnes Omnibus
@spudvol: He will just do a pet rescue post.
dmsilev
“Immigrant fast food taking jobs away from good old-fashioned American foods!”
dms
debit
@dmsilev:
If you’d ever had a Sambusa, you’d never eat at McDonalds again.
gypsy howell
Sigh. And if it WERE a mosque, that would be different how?
I’m going to be sickened when the group behind building this community center inevitably gives up, and decides it’s just not worth the trouble. And then we’ll hear a few days of rightwing celebratory crowing before they move on to the next fake outrage.
Meanwhile, Americans will have proven ourselves once again to be complete fucking assholes to the world.
tomvox1
What’s gotten into the (semi-) MSM today?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/why-not-to-bomb-iran/?hp
beltane
I know my countrymen and women well. Even if the community center did not include any house of worship, they would still be up in arms because Muslims are building something, and they are not people who have those sort of rights. Soon, they will discover that all the office buildings in the WTC’s (I’m sick of the ‘Ground Zero’ designation-it was not a nuclear explosion) vicinity contain hundreds of Muslim workers, and they will demand that this situation be remedied.
This is about tribalism and nothing more. Some people out there really need to sit down and go f**k themselves.
D-Chance.
Plans include a fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, bookstore, performing arts center and food court.
The local mega-churches in our area have fitness centers, swimming pools, basketball courts, bookstores, arts centers, and food courts (along with daycare, computer labs, and other assorted enhancements).
So, no, Cole, it isn’t a “mosque”… it’s a mega-mosque. Call the damn thing what it is.
Honus
@D-Chance.: @gypsy howell:
“Sigh. And if it WERE a mosque, that would be different how?”
Exactly. Still haven’t gotten an answer from the “it’s a Mosque!!!!!” trolls.
toujoursdan
Post two links and I go into moderation hell. Ugh.
Zach
@gypsy howell: Sigh. And if it WERE a mosque, that would be different how?
Exactly; this is the right answer. Saying that it’s not really a mosque or that it’s replacing a coat factor and not on Ground Zero or that you won’t see it from the Freedom Tower (or whatever it’s going to be called now) is the wrong answer. Colin Powell gave us the right formula when he endorsed Obama in 2008:
Powell’s full remarks here
The photo he references here
Frank
@gypsy howell:
And let’s not forget all the other mosques that the scared bigots are fighting around the country. Whether it is in TN or CA, people on the right fringes are trying to use zoning laws to block them. Just like during the Joe McCarthy era, this is a very sad chapter in our country’s history.
WereBear
Why is this dominating the media? Because someone wants it to.
Growing up in the seventies, there were endless clips of: people waiting in gas lines, emoting over the price of meat, losing their jobs and lining up for more, etc. There’s plenty of opportunities to get such film now… only no one is doing it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Honus: If it is a mosque, it is not a church. Duh.
beltane
@Zach: Colin Powell is absolutely right. It would be fitting if the completed Freedom Tower complex lived up to its name by including a place where its Muslim workers can pray in peace. That is how you retake a religion from the lunatics and haters.
beltane
@WereBear: The powers that be won’t give us bread so they’re hoping circuses will be enough.
WereBear
@beltane: Classic! Cracked me up.
Zach
@beltane: Given the impracticality of going up and down a hundred stories several times a day, any Muslims working at the Tower will do that whether or not there’s a place to congregate for the purpose.
slightly_peeved
I don’t think the world is going to consider Americans to be more of a pack of assholes as a result of these actions.
mai naem
@Zach: Yeah, but Colin Powell is colored. Hell, according to Dr. Laura he’s a n#$##4 , n#$#%, n#$% so his opinion doesn’t matter and he should shut up too because we elected a black Kenyan Muslim usurper to the WH.
kay
I’m like Eugene. I reject shared responsibility for this. I didn’t do it. Not guilty. High profile conservatives did. We could all wring our hands and moan about how effectively or ineffectively we “push back” and work on our next defensive “PR campaign” or we could just put it where it belongs, on the individual people who did it. We know who they are. There are, what, fifteen conservative elites in media and government and who pushed this horror? They have names, and I’m not one of them.
vtr
I’m trying to remember the last time such an emotional issue as 9-11 was so cynically tied to an unrelated non-issue solely for cheap political gain. This is a disgrace.
beltane
@kay: Thank you, Kay. I’m sick of this shared responsibility, “both sides are doing it” crap. One side has committed a premeditated attack on decency and long-held American values. They are the ones responsible for their actions. If someone breaks into your home, it is not your fault that you did not build a gun tower and hired a team of armed guards.
I read that Nancy Pelosi wants to investigate the opponents of the community center to find out who is funding them. Good for her. She should be applauded and encouraged in this effort.
WereBear
@kay: Right on! This practice of dribbling out blame to everyone is just one more way they duck the responsibility for the sick things they do.
vtr
@mai naem: Dr. Laura N. Schlessinger is retiring from her radio show to “re-gain her First Amendment rights.”
bemused
Dr. Laura, my dear, do let that door kick you in your racist, white ass on the way out.
kay
@WereBear:
I know why Colin Powell has to use “we” and I certainly understand why Obama (as President) can’t launch into a tirade with a list of names, but it bugs the hell out of me that each and every time one of these smear campaigns is launched, we’re all supposed to explore our motives or moan about how “supporters” aren’t “effective” at “push back”.
I didn’t have any motive, I had nothing to do with it, and I don’t know why it’s up to liberals to defend (preemptively?) against the next attack. I don’t even know how to do that. I have no idea who they’re going after next, although if past behavior is any indication, they have something or someone in their sights.
Screw that. I don’t want any part of it.
J
@Zach: & gypsy howell.
You’re right. But it’s part of the Republican technique, and reveals a good deal of guile and cunning.
In tones of high moral outrage attack your opponents for doing something that might not be in any way objectionable in the first place and throw in masses of factual falsehood. Your opponents will almost certainly fall into the trap of picking apart the falsehoods, thereby apparently confirming that it would be wrong to do what they’re accused of doing, though they’re not doing it (people who think about these things no doubt have a term for it: “implicitly endorsing the frame” or something like that). A trivial example: “the Democrats are going to build a high speed rail line from LA to Las Vegas” (do you remember that phony outrage?). In fact there were no such plans, but for all I or anyone knows it might’ve be a good idea and a good way of spending stimulus money. You’d think that false accusations would bring discredit on the accuser, but they are often more effective than true ones.
Zach
@vtr: Wow she’s seriously retiring to regain the right to taunt black people by repeating “nigger” over and over? Bold move, Doc.
dan
@WereBear: You got it. We are being played. This is a non-issue.
Republicans scream about a Ground Zero Mosque and liberals and the media (and blogs) feel they need to respond about tolerance and the Constitution and blah blah blah.
The Republicans and their Fox and Friends do not give a crap about this Mosque nonsense. It is a distraction from their lack of solutions to real problems. And Dems are happy to play along because they don’t have any solutions either.
toujoursdan
@D-Chance.:
D-Chance: A megachurch isn’t called a megachurch because of its facilities. “Megachurch” denotes any church with more than a thousand weekly worshippers (which should be “kilo” but whatever). Mega = numerical value.
The Islamic community centre’s prayer facilities can’t accommodate thousands of worshippers. The area’s demographics don’t support it anyway.
(But even if they did: “Who cares?”)
Chad N Freude
I think this is far worse than McCarthyism. McCarthy and his followers could cloak their lies in Americanism and Patriotism. What we have now is naked religious and racist bigotry. McCarthy claimed that the Constitution was threatened and he was protecting it. The current crop of bigots are claiming that the Constitution doesn’t matter, that the rights it recognizes and guarantees don’t really count.
El Cid
@D-Chance.: Calling that thing a mega-mosque in comparison to the nearly infinitely sized Christian megachurches in, say, metro Atlanta, is like calling the Vatican ‘a Catholic office building.’
chopper
just like the JCC down the way is in reality one huge synagogue.
vtr
@Zach: Right now, she’s walking around her house singing “Anything Sarah does I can do better” from”Annie Get Your Gun.” I think.
kay
@WereBear:
It’s part of the game plan. You could plot it on a graph. High profile conservatives launch insane hit job, hysteria ensues, “reasonable” conservatives appear (once the objective is met, and not a moment before) and urge “caution” and spread blame around.
“It’s very important that, as Republicans talk about this issue, we be thoughtful and careful about making those distinctions,”
There’s the strategist, right on cue.
Chad N Freude
As much as I despise Dr. Laura Schlessinger, for reasons that predate her racial eptithetting, I’m not convinced that she holds particularly racist attitudes. Her problem seems to be with social disapproval of the use of racist terminology. Of course, I don’t think she’s ever attempted to say “kike” or “spic” eleven times in five minutes, so maybe I’m wrong about that.
Chad N Freude
So where are the buses bringing in the freedom-loving protesters for the march on the Burlington Coat Factory Outlet?
SRW1
Historical compromise:
No mosque near Ground Zero and no more ground zeros near mosques.
Maxwell James
Kebabs do not threaten our way of life.
Ahem.
I believe those are now referred to as “freedom skewers”
WereBear
@kay: And who the heck cares about this, anyway? It’s all to rev up their minuscule base… all this ranting and waving and people showing up with teabags on their hats; it’s a tiny tiny batshit crazy percentage who should go back to ranting on subway platforms where they belong.
It’s about as real as the drama of WWE, and even more dangerous.
Omnes Omnibus
@Maxwell James: Jesus nuggets.
Bruuuuce
I hate the phrase, but this is the absolutely perfect opportunity for supporters of the Cordoba Center to turn the haters’ words back on themselves, to wit, that if the group is forced to move their proposed community center, then the terrorists will have won. Make the yutzim who made that phrase the centerpiece of their five-year mission to rape Iraq eat their words, and in a way that tastes like ashes.
(Mayor Bloomberg came thisclose yesterday, and, as much as I hate agreeing with him, I was rooting for him to go ahead and say it, already.)
Nick
@Chad N Freude:
They’re driving around the city carrying signs that call it a “mega mosque” with the screaming headline “Why there?” with a crescent moon on what appears to be 7 WTC.
Chad N Freude
@Bruuuuce: The terrorists have been winning ever since we started patting down airline passengers. Every fear-motivated response to a new perceived threat is a win. We have everything to fear but fear itself.
MTiffany
“…calling this a mosque is like calling a casino in Las Vegas a cathedral because it has a wedding chapel.”
…or a place where sheep are fleeced of their money.
Bruuuuce
@Chad N Freude: I understand where you’re coming from, and agree that we need security, not security theater.
What I’m saying, though, is that it’s time to throw those overused words back into the faces of the mealymouthed liars who hid behind them all for most of the Aughts. That’s a good first step toward getting beyond the fear they want to spread.
Chad N Freude
@Bruuuuce: I agree, and would add that the bigots are also terrorists.
Bender
Oh, yeah, what do they call those Muslim houses of worship? Hmmmmm, I’ve heard that name before, but Robinson can’t seem to come up with the word for it….
That’s only pithy if you’re dumb as a fucking paper napkin. A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop, so a casino couldn’t be called a cathedral in any circumstances. Additionally, a Vegas wedding chapel is not a “Christian” place of worship, in that atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, whatever, all can get married there. Can a Christian, Buddhist or Jew go up and pray in the “not-quite-exactly-Ground-Zero Muslim place of worship,” Eugene?
So, pithy? No. Stupid? ¡Sí!
Amir_Khalid
Here’s a point I haven’t seen brought up before: the difference between a prayer space and a mosque. It is not just a matter of size. Only a mosque would have a pulpit for delivering the sermon at regular Friday prayers and holiday services. (Such services can’t be conducted in a mere prayer space.) A mosque would also have designated staff: an imam to deliver the sermons and tend to the congregation, a muezzin to do the prayer call over the PA system five times a day (although maybe not in the US, given urban noise ordinances). Also, a mosque typically occupies its own building, but I’ve been to NYC (I stayed in a hotel at what was not yet Ground Zero) so I know this is unpractical there.
someguy
Ann Coulter sums it up. She wants us to embrace the right but put all the muslims to the sword.
We should do the opposite.
Michael
@Zach:
I’ve long known that the most valuable expression of first amendment rights is the non-pc use of the word ni99er by conservatives.
The word, incidentally, is never that far from their lips. Clarence Thomas, Tom Sowell, Alan Keyes, Walter Williams and a handful of willing dupes and shills simply choose to ignore it in return for some crumbs.
WereBear
@Michael: There’s good money & career advancement in tokenism.
ChrisS
That means that the freedom-loving protestors against the Cordoba Center would have to actually go to NYC.
catclub
@toujoursdan:
“Mega = numerical value.”
and indeed, it is the money that the megachurch represents,
not the people.
Chad N Freude
Worthy of note (gleaned from TPM).
Chad N Freude
@ChrisS: You mean these guys?
ETA: Some of the comments on the article are pretty good.
Mark S.
‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Imam Helped FBI With Counterterrorism Efforts
None of that will matter, of course. Looking back, I’m am very surprised the Sherrod thing turned out the way it did. Normally, the right wing lies and innuendo keep piling up and the other side spends all its time disproving it, if that side gets any attention at all. Our media does its usual bangup job of staying so neutral that a viewpoint completely devoid of reality is presented as “one side of the issue.”
A commenter the other day (who I presume lives in Europe) said that Obama’s election was greeted with such euphoria over there because people thought Americans had finally rejected the idiocy and xenophobia of the GOP. How do you like us now?
catclub
@Chad N Freude:
Yeah, and she will be skewered again at Townhall (ASW)
as a RINO or worse.
She could be the Next John Cole.
catclub
Roy at Alicublog has already stated, and I wish to repeat:
That for all the blather, no one is stepping up with real money to make the Imam sell the building so its historic nature can be preserved.
Maybe I should start a pseudo-charitable fund and see how much money the rubes would contribute.
shortstop
@Chad N Freude:
Listen to the whole clip. The nigger, nigger, nigger business isn’t even the offensive stuff. With increasing hysteria, she unloads a complete closetful of venomous racial resentments against the black woman who called in.
Svensker
@Chad N Freude:
Ugh. She’s right, but for all the wrong reasons. I think I need a shower after that.
Mark S.
@catclub:
Kathleen? I used to think so (she’s been dissenting from the mouthbreathers pretty regularly for the past two years at least) but she still writes plenty of stupid shit.
I didn’t like this particular column. The key for me is that these Muslims are very tolerant and moderate and not at all the same as Osama bin Laden. This point doesn’t get across very well when you compare them to the Ku Klux Klan.
Hal
So, is Lee Atwater spinning in his grave, or giving a high five?
And, one of Atwater’s best, by far still relevant today. Just replace nigger with Muslim, foodstamps with HCR, etc.
Mark S.
@Svensker:
Exactly.
WereBear
He had deathbed regrets prior to his death from brain cancer.
For all the good it did.
shortstop
@catclub:
Of course not. They know he’d just use the money for 40-oz. bottles of malt liquor and dirty bombs.
Chad N Freude
@Svensker: I read the op-ed as “We can’t let claims of hurt feelings override Constitutional rights and application of law.” What’s your objection?
Michael
A little OT, but I thought I’d share this lovely shot o’ Congressman Peter King.
Brownie points to anybody who can tell me who he’s standing with.
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/aia/images/king02L.jpg
Chad N Freude
@shortstop: You’re right. I listened to both clips at Media Matters, and she makes it clear that it’s You-Blacks-against-US.
Svensker
@Chad N Freude:
My objection is that she basically says that, yes, Muslims are filthy subhumans, but as a law-abiding constitution-loving citizen she has to tolerate them.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chad N Freude:
I could have done without the bit where she compares the Park51 community center with the Ku Klux Klan (i.e. her argument is that even assholes have 1st admendment rights we are bound to respect under the law), but I guess this is as good as it is going to get from that particular quarter. After all these years of never being challenged on it, false equivalence runs so deep in the veins of right wing pundits that they would turn anoxic without it, I guess.
ETA: I see Mark S. and Svensker got there first. As my mom used to say “Great minds think alike. And then there’s you and me”.
Svensker
@Michael:
The guy with the full head of hair is SO familiar…when you tell us who it is, I’ll slap myself.
Two obvious lefties, probably academics, judging from the sweater vests. :)
Edit: With all that tweed and the hand knits vest, I shoulda knowed they was Irishmens.
Ash Can
@Svensker:
@Mark S.:
That was my takeaway too. She’s spewing the same old crap, conflating all American Muslims with a handful of crazies from the Middle East. She doesn’t have the moral or intellectual wherewithal to see what Cordoba House really is: a goodwill community-improvement project initiated by a group of mainstream Muslims that deliberately flies in the face of the extremism that engendered 9/11 (and whose name invokes the golden age of cooperation and coexistence among the three major occidental religions, yet). Cordoba House is a slap in the faces of Muslim extremists, and no one else’s.
debbie
You know conservatives have lost their moorings when the man who complained that there were too many Jews on the Supreme Court can tell Newt that he’s gone too far:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/pat-buchanan-says-newt-gingrich-went-too-far-with-ground-zero-mosque-comments-video.php
catclub
@Michael:
I certainly do not recognize them, but would guess IRA members. Isn’t that his specialty?
shortstop
@Michael:
Looks like Gerry Adams on the left. No idea who’s on the right.
catclub
@Chad N Freude:
“I read the op-ed as “We can’t let claims of hurt feelings override Constitutional rights and application of law.” What’s your objection? ”
I agree. Interestingly, the objection here is that they are having their feelings hurt. She compared Muslims to the KKK!
Never mind that the whole point was that the only people with principles are the ones who stand up for those we do not like.
Standing up for the rights of the popular is never even necessary.
Irony is not just a river in Egypt.
kay
@WereBear:
I think that’s what I’m trying (and failing) to say.
I’m tired of playing my appointed role in Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich’s conservative freak show.
They pick the fake-issue. They play their roles. Conservative media do their thing, and mainstream media follow.
Liberals chime in with shock and horror followed by “reasonable” conservatives (belatedly) appearing to deliver a lecture directed to “all of us”, and then liberals shoulder that collective guilt and start apologizing for not being able to “effectively manage” the freak show conservatives planned and directed.
If we were just better at playing our conservative-assigned liberal role this wouldn’t happen. Repeat, in predictable 6 week cycles.
What would happen if one or more of these actors didn’t pick up the assigned script? What would happen if liberals just didn’t respond at all?
Mnemosyne
@Svensker:
Given that Parker is already pretty well-known to be a racist asshole (remember her infamous column about Obama not having the right “blood” to be an American?), I actually don’t care what she thinks of Muslims as long as she concedes (as she did) that they have the same rights that every other American does.
As I’ve said on this topic before, I no longer give a shit what anyone feels about another group as long as they agree that they have no moral or legal right to infringe on that group’s rights. Parker can personally hate Muslims until the day she dies as long as she’s willing to agree that we can’t abridge their rights just because of her petty hatreds.
John Cole
@Bender: Ahh, poor Bender. Such a stickler for the rules when it involves your invisible sky person.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Well, she delivered a pious lecture to all of us, so I’m appropriately chastened.
Not that I had jack to do with any of it, or believed one word of this nonsense, but, still, I rely on conservatives to show me the way.
But only after the media cycle has completed, and they’ve wrung every bit of possible political benefit from the smear.
bemused
@shortstop:
Exactly. Dr. Laura completely ignored the very real issue the woman was experiencing. She didn’t hear it or didn’t want to hear it. Instead, she immediately made it all about her and her own racial resentments. How strange that she didn’t go on Fox to make her “I need to be free to be a bigot” announcement or didn’t even Fox want to touch this?
Every day some new racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic bile is spewed out by Weird Science Chets thanks to R aiders and abettors.
Comrade Dread
Well, calling it the Burlington Coat Factory mosque just wouldn’t inspire the rage the Tea Party is looking for, now would it?
Unless you really, really love suits.
debbie
For those on Facebook, you might want to friend Justin Coussoule, the Democrat running against Boehner:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justin-Coussoule-for-Congress/322643228645?v=wall&ref=share
He may not be as progressive as some might like, but anything that’ll get Boehner to sweat off a bit of his orange can’t be all bad.
Chad N Freude
@Svensker: @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: @catclub: OK, I missed that, probably from speed-reading it. Still, I don’t think we can reject people who take principled stands because they take them for the wrong reason. But then, of course, we’re Democrats, so . . .
Svensker
@Chad N Freude:
No, I agree to some extent. Parker seems to have a bit more sense than a number of folks on the right, and I’m all for encouraging good behavior, even if her motives are not pure. Baby steps.
But she still pisses me off.
Kryptik
Don’t look now, but while the issue might fizzle out as a national issue, it might end up tilting every single local NY race, including gov. And more than half of respondents say it’s at least some kind of factor.
Cuomo still seems to be polling pretty well ahead, but the drumbeats sadly still seem to be only starting. God, I hate this country sometimes.
Joel
A DougJ-style Pink Floyd reference.
That’s vintage internet dorkiness there.
Amir_Khalid
@Mnemosyne:
Recently, Kathleen Parker claimed to be a relative of President Obama. She said, I think it was in her column, that family-tree research commissioned by a family member of hers found that she and Obama were eighth cousins. That was some target she picked for her racism.
Shalimar
@Shalimar: I actually say something memorable for once and I’m “a commenter.” Of course, I probably should have left out the profanity if I was trying to be memorable. FWIW, I hadn’t seen the casino comparison before but had seen it compared to a hospital with chapel a number of times, which is where the idea came from.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
Of course, as Amir_Khalid pointed out right below your comment, this prayer space inside a community center fits the definition of a mosque about as well as a chapel inside a hospital fits the definition of a cathedral. But why let actual facts get in the way of your paranoia, right? It’s not like words actually mean anything.
Bender
Hospital? When did we leave the casino?
Anyway, it’s still quite a stupid analogy. So tell me, can Jews go pray in the Muslim “community center with a place of worship” like they can get married in a casino chapel? Hindus? Can atheists go up there and play ping-pong?
Nethead Jay
@Michael: Gerry Adams with the beard on the left. Can’t remember the name of the other guy but I’m pretty sure he’s another IRA/Sinn Fein biggie. Possibly the intelligence guy?
asiangrrlMN
You go get your shrill on, Eugene! I gotta agree with those who say I take no responsibility for this fiasco. This is pure bullshit, and it makes my head hurt that we are still fucking talking about this.
@shortstop: From what I’ve read, Dr. L’s reaction was hateful. Here’s my question–why the fuck was the woman calling Dr. L. in the first place? Seriously. If you are a person of color or a gay person or hell, even a woman (since Dr. L. doesn’t care for feminists, either), why get advice from Dr. L.? And, if your white husband is allowing his friends to make racist jokes in your presence, well, then you have more of a problem that just the hubby’s friends.
As I’ve said before, if you are any kind of minority and hooked up with the Republicans, then don’t bitch to me when they treat you wrong.
Amir_Khalid
Why is my comment awaiting moderation? All I said was
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
@Bender:
So tell me, can Jews go pray in the Muslim “community center with a place of worship” like they can get married in a casino chapel? Hindus? Can atheists go up there and play ping-pong?
I see no reason why the Park51 people would object to people, of any faith, taking a prayer break while in a community center open to all comers. Indeed, I expect they will encourage it. However, if the prayers require facilities specific to a synagogue or Hindu temple or Church of FSM, then I suppose it would be better to go there to say one’s prayers.
I doubt that a ping-pong table will be provided in the prayer space.
asiangrrlMN
@Amir_Khalid: You said the place where you play poker. The mod filter does not like that word.
asiangrrlMN
FYWP.
@Amir_Khalid: You said the place where you play that game with cards. The mod filter does not like that word.
And, in bitter irony, it also doesn’t like the game itself which threw me into moderation as well.
Amir_Khalid
@asiangrrlMN: I’m not quite sure which was the offending word. Was it the item of furniture?