Reflecting on the twin horrors of gay marriage and the wholesale destruction of a Burlington Coat Factory outlet in lower Manhattan, I see a lot of similarity between the two issues. Frum Forum makes the point that all Obama said last night is that that “our laws grant people the right to do what they please with their own property….One’s rights don’t evaporate upon the majority taking offense”. Indeed, the argument that the government should prevent the Cordoba house from being built is that the Islamic community center would be such an affront to the awesomeness of post-9/11 America that we should deny Muslims their rights under the law, and even their basic humanity, to stop its construction. There is no serious practical argument against the Cordoba house; even some notable supporters of bombing Iran assert that people like Feisal Abdul Rauf are Al Qaeda’s greatest enemies.
So it is with gay marriage. Though conservatives oppose it, it would probably encourage same sex couples to lead the kinds of lives that conservatives think everyone should lead. Ta-Nehisi Coates correctly points out that the conservative argument against gay marriage is that paying tribute to the ideal of Lifelong Heterosexual Monogamy is more important than treating gay people like human beings. Hearing this argument made by thrice-married serial philanderers adds to the absurdity, of course, but it’s just as ridiculous a point when made by those so chaste they would resist the pre-marital advances of Reese Witherspoon lookalikes.
Both debates are ultimately comical. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, it is not funny that someone should be dehumanized, but it is sometimes funny that he should be dehumanized over so little, and that his dehumanization should be the coin of what we call civilization.
Omnes Omnibus
I was born a Filene-ist and, by God, I will die a Filene-ist.
cleek
imagine if the Dems could demagogue as well as the GOP…
calling all toasters
Yeah, but to the rest of the country a more apropos quote is “Kill the pig, slit its throat, bash ‘er in.”
DougJ
@cleek:
Maybe they’d have as many seats in Congress as Republicans do.
cleek
@DougJ:
let’s revisit this point on 11/3.
Steve
Isn’t it just like Glenn Beck said? It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg!
JenJen
Burlingtonians! I’m going to change my Twitter avatar to a coat of some sort.
Stealing that.
Napoleon
Check out Josh Marshall’s take on the Politio’s coverage of this. He flat out calls them liars.
morzer
@Napoleon:
Very shrill, that young Josh, very shrill.
eric
@cleek: i know where you are coming from and, from your prior posts, I know you know this, but the key difference is that the media would never ever play ball. Just look at how media push back has started on Obama’s speech. this fight has been and will be three against one, with the three being the instutional GOP, the GOP wurlitxer (Limbaugh, Drudge, at al) and the MSM.
It is why i dont beat down on Obama for not going all in for single payer….it would have been doa in the union hating, social security hating, fair tax hating MSM. plain and simple, the initial conditions preclude certain outcomes, usually the ones leading to equality, fairness, and peace of mind for the middle and lower classes.
eric
DougJ
@JenJen:
I love that avatar idea.
Svensker
Maybe we should ask anyone who wants to build a non-Judeo/Christian building what they think of bombing Iran. If they answer, “Fuck yeah!” then they get the permit. If not, not. I’m sure K-Hammer and Little Billy would be down wid it.
Also, too, marriage permits (assuming it would prolly weed out a fair number of gays).
This could work. I iz brilliant!
Stillwater
Overall disappointing post Doug. I mean, you begin with a riveting, snark-rich lead – Reflecting on the twin horrors of gay marriage and the wholesale destruction of a Burlington Coat Factory outlet in lower Manhattan, I see a lot of similarity between the two issues – but too quickly descends into factually accurate assessments, correct spelling and (literally) literal descriptions and conclusions. Given that the lead fully pegged the snarkometer at clown-red, but the rest quickly degenerated into seriousness, I feel disappointed and give the post reluctant 7.
morzer
@Stillwater:
Indeed. Where are the shrillness, the hype, the distortions? When are you going to take your responsibilities seriously, and become the left-wing’s equivalent of Politico?
DougJ
@Stillwater:
I meant it to be a serious post, but I can’t stop myself from snarking sometimes.
cmorenc
I am truly ashamed of the majority of our fellow citizens in this country at this moment.
I do think that the insistence by leaders of the mosque in question to build it in the proposed site is an unwise choice that needlessly provides a rallying point for bigoted yahoos to attract and rally fellow-citizens who otherwise would be indifferent to a mosque at a site another dozen or more blocks further away.
I also think this country should be enlightened enough to tolerate and live with religious beliefs we’re not at all comfortable or likely to embrace ourselves. Such as Pentecostal Evangelical Christianity.
It would be an extremely healthy thing for the great majority of citizens in this country to recognize that the particular group who wants to erect this mosque has no intention of undermining or overthrowing or terrorizing this country, even though we don’t really cotton to many of their beliefs. It would be great to support this as a great symbol that the cornerstone of this country is tolerance and acceptance and welcoming of people of all religious beliefs.
But too many Americans are momentarily caught up in Xenophobia and irrational fear of Muslims to be so broad-minded. I’m both deeply ashamed and even a bit more afraid of my fellow-citizens than I am most of the leaders of this particular Mosque. There’s one word that best summarizes the reaction of too many fellow citizens: bigotry. Driven by undiscriminating fear and loathing.
Steve
@Stillwater: The Raymond Chandler thing didn’t save it for you?
soonergrunt
@eric: THIS, over and over and over again. Needs to be tatoo’ed backwards on the foreheads of a lot of people so that they see it when they (presumably) brush teeth and/or shave in the morning.
JGabriel
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t you get tired of holding services in the basement?
.
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: That’s where my God wanted them to be. I am but a humble vessel; it is not my place to argue. Moreover, they just got some great sweaters from Michael Kors.
ETA: The Filene’s Basement on Michigan Ave. in Chicago starts on the third floor.
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
As the song says:
“Come on Filene’s…Ah come on let’s take off everything”
cleek
@eric:
maybe.
but you can never change someone’s opinion of you by always doing exactly what they expect you to do.
aphorisms aside, no, i don’t expect Dems will ever be known as fighters. not unless some kind of charismatic firebrand somehow rises to the presidency and leads the charge. and there hasn’t been one of them since the ’30s.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Traditional Marriage and the Burlington Coat Factory Outlets are the twin towers of American morality and capitalist pride in the post 9/11 world! Anyone who opposes them is a traitor to our ideals and the memory of every good white Christian American who died that day!
By the way, I’d like you to meet my fifth wife, Doris. We just made a fortune from an old Woolworth’s that we turned into a factory for premium grade paper made specially from old growth forests!
.
JGabriel
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, well … that’s where basements begin in Chicago.
.
scav
Well, it would appear that a good number of our fellow citizens couldn’t reliably distinguish between the principles, ideals and rules of a representative democracy and those underlying Big Brother, Survivor or American Idol. Everything’s reduced to a short-term popularity contest and you vote off people you don’t personally like rather than based on the application of any universally applied set of standards. Terrifying and shaming indeed.
Interesting in that this would be the weekend I happen to be indulging in quite the Max Headroom revival.
Svensker
The idiots at AFA are charging that Gov. Paterson “offers to make Islam the state-sponsored religion of New York” and is “imposing sharia.”
The article also mentions that this clown will be speaking at an upcoming event with Pawlenty, Romney and McConnell. Shouldn’t those fellows be asked if they agree that Paterson is imposing sharia? And that NO mosques should be built? And if not, will they publicly distance themselves from him?
cleek
of course.
but who will do it ?
Brachiator
@soonergrunt:
Heh. Well said.
By the way, I’ve been away from my computers for a while, so I didn’t have a chance until now to add my hope that all your medical issues turn out OK.
me
@JenJen: A soft corinthian leather coat?
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: It’s because of the fire.
Cathie from Canada
Sometimes we don’t get to choose the battle, we only get to choose our side.
Issues can be easy to support in theory — gay equality, religious freedom — it is the specific battles around these issues that are so difficult and controversial and painful. These aren’t the battles that anybody necessarily wanted to fight, but when they become symbolic, then we cannot turn away. We have to make up our minds which side we are actually on, and then we have to stand fast.
AlanDean
Can anyone tell me where the Raymond Chandler paraphrase stuff came from?
Walker
@cmorenc
So you know the NY Real Estate market to say that there was a site equally as good (in terms of layout, square footage) for a similar price in those areas? Because unless there was a such a site “all things being equal” there was nothing unwise about it.
Martha
@soonergrunt: Sadly, yes.
And many good wishes coming your way from me. Waiting sucks, I know.
eric
@cleek: but people have to be willing to change their minds. People will simply recast what you are doing into their pre-set mold. So, Obama is not really fighting for religious freedom, he is throwing a meaningless politcal bone to the Left that is frsutrated with his lack of deeds. or some such nonsense.
I do not think we disagree.
JGabriel
@Omnes Omnibus: Got it. That explains much. (Actually, I think there’s an above ground Filene’s somewhere here in NYC too.)
.
burnspbesq
My kid is starting his first session of behind-the-wheel driver training momentarily. Excuse me, I’m going to go sit in the corner and chew my nails down to the second knuckle.
eric
@Martha: i have been out of the box a bit…to what are the soonergrunt references? thanks.
DougJ
@AlanDean:
The Simple Art of Murder.
patrick II
What strikes me about the conservative/teabaggers concern about both gay marriage and sharia law is, like many of the things they become outraged about, is the clear projection of their own fears and motives upon others.
Don’t like gay marriage? — fine don’t marry someone of your own gender. But that is not enough, they feel threatened (read tempted) by the thought of what will happen without strong social prohibition against the possibility of succumbing to their own temptations.
As for the fear of sharia, the loudest of those objectors are the same people who themselves campaign for the United States to be declared a “Christian” nation, argue for the ten commandments as the basis for law and rail against a neutral, secular application of law. They understand and fear the unequal application of law based upon religion because that is exactly what they themselves would do given the opportunity.
TooManyJens
@eric: He talked about it in this comment.
Add my best wishes to the (lengthy) list, soonergrunt.
morzer
@patrick II:
Until Breitbart and Rove are dragged to the altar and forced into unnatural connubiality, how can our liberal fascist homosexual shariaist hearts be at peace?
Mark S.
@patrick II:
You make it sound so easy.
Violet
@morzer:
My commie soshulist liberal heart won’t be at peace until Rove, Breitbart, Limbaugh and Beck are forced into gay polygamous marriage. Since I’m an animal lover, I won’t require that they also gay marry a dog.
Mark S.
@Violet:
That doesn’t sound like a good deal for the dog.
Violet
@Mark S.:
That’s why I left the dog out of it. No reason for the dog to suffer.
Martha
@TooManyJens: Thank you…was interrupted by she-who-is-addicted-to-tennis-ball and had to go brave the mosquitos and play catch with the beast…
Mark S.
@Violet:
Whoops, I can’t read.
wesindc
Having been born and breed in the US for my entire 40 years I am shocked about all of this. Are we not supposed to be the epitome of society? Tolerant to all views. Yet Canada and now Mexico have gay marriage and we don’t.
We are debating whether or not a religious center should be built somewhat close to ground zero. They have every right to build where they want according to our sacrosanct constitution.
Being one of the privileged (IE intelligent people) and traveling across the world. We are the worst it seems when it comes to individual freedoms. Yet we are supposed to be the shinning beacon of liberty.
I’ve hated a lot in my 40 years on the planet but this Mosque and Gay rights issue has pushed me over the edge.
Where is the study on Eastern Europeans dropping babies in the US? How about them pesky Russians?
I give up.
I thought the Bush years were bad but this vitriol is getting out of control.
Brick Oven Bill
Maybe the Muslims should just call it an ’embassy’…it’s much smaller than the one the US built in Iraq amid the rubble caused by our weaponry.
someguy
Bullshit. You try to fly your right-wing-ass confederate battle flag in my neighborhood and my zoning commission is going to beat you down like you stole some shit from their mothers. Matter of fact, you fly a U.S. flag and they will do so as well, had to have a ‘no flags at all’ policy to get rid of the tacky flower flags and whatnot. Can’t park on the left on Tuesdays and Thursdays, more than three cars in the driveway you’re getting fined, changes of paint subject to ratification, no interior mods without clearing both county code inspectors and the zoning commission, number of inhabitants limited… And don’t get me started about the town’s power to take away your property to build landfills and community centers. That’s without considering the federal rules constraining your ability to dump shit on your land, open a trash burning plant or whatever. These constraints on fuck-you-I’ll-do-as-I-like behavior are good things all, but if you think you’re free to dispose of your property how you like, you haven’t a clue about which laws actually govern how you dispose of your property.
Not that the people opposing the mosque aren’t ranting, raving, slavering bigots, but this particular point is way off.
Southern Beale
I know this will probably make me hopelessly uncool, but I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Committed” earlier this year, her treatise on marriage … and she basically made the same point. In fact, she went a step further and said marriage is a dying institution anyway and gay marriage might actually save it. And she’s right. When so many straights are saying “meh” to marriage, and here you have a whole group of people clamoring to get into the club, maybe you should let them, y’know?
JenJen
@me: Like you had to ask. Of course!
toujoursdan
@cmorenc:
What insistence?
The bought the property like any other organization, applied for the zoning permits, made it through the first round of approvals and then this so-called “controversy” erupted, mostly fuelled by people who don’t even live in New York (and tend to think of this city as some Disneyesque theme park and those who live here as support staff or symbols rather than actual people who may have real spiritual and social needs.)
It’s not like they could turn around, sell it and buy something equivalent. (And it’s not like anyone offered to swap another Financial District property for this one.) There isn’t much open property in that part of town to exchange anyway.
The Imam of this mosque follows the Sufi sect of Islam which is non-doctrinal, mystical and liberal (a bit like the Quakers or high church Episcopalians are to Christianity). He taught an Introduction to Arabic course at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church: Park Avenue for several years, which is a progressive, gay friendly church noted for being where NJ governor (and all around creep) Jim McGreevey ended up when he came out of the closet. I don’t think he’s much of a threat to anyone.
Betsy
@Mark S.:
HA!
@Southern Beale:
I seem to recall a joke from a LONG time ago (like in the early 1990s, when gay marriage was just starting to get some attention as an issue) about how gays are the real squares these days – they’re the only ones who still want to get married and join the army.
Napoleon
Mission accomplished for Mike Allen’s Politico. NBC news ran with the bull shit story that Obama came out in favor of the community center and now has backed off. The MSM literally is incapable of understanding English.
Betsy
@soonergrunt:
Also, apologies if this is getting tiring, but I just wanted to pass along my good wishes. I always enjoy your comments, even when (on rare occasion) I’m arguing with them. I sincerely hope your condition proves to be unthreatening and easy to deal with.
MattF
DougJ, you’re falling into the trap of being merely logical. However, the verbiage we get from the Right isn’t ‘argument’ in the normal sense of the word. It’s more like the series of error messages you get when some algorithm has gone off the rails– the first few messages make some sense and may actually refer to what went wrong. But after the first few, the messages become self-referential; they’re talking to each other, not to the outside world.
PurpleGirl
The cultural center (including a prayer room) isn’t the only Islamic project to become controversial in NYC. A Stqaten Island Muslim congregation wants to expand their facilities and was in talks with the Archdiocese of NY to buy an old and unused convent. (They may even have been in contract on the convent.) The naysayers were loud and insistent and the Archdiocese backed out of the deal.
Another neighborhood got upset in Brooklyn and has been protesting a planned mosque there.
So, I think that wherever Imam Rauf wanted to put Cordoba House, once the plans were public there would be an uproar from someone, somewhere.
Steve
@someguy: This rant is righteous and accurate. The reality is that religious buildings, as a rule, actually get better treatment than everyone else!
Steve
By the way, can anyone explain the ubiquitous “David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute” tag for me?
The Other Chuck
@Betsy:
Barney Frank used that one recently when he was accused by some repug of having a “radical homosexual agenda”. His response ended with “I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”
lahru
civil [everyone’s] civil rights are not up for a vote
neither are religious rights
if we cannot outlaw stupidity and bigotry both of the above are safe as well
DougJ
@Steve:
Perhaps it wasn’t appropriate here but Michael Gerson once wrote that his idea of political debate was David Brooks giving a seminar at the Aspen Institute. I use it whenever I do a post in which a thoughtful, serious, principled conservative (in this case, Ross Douthat) says something stupid.
Omnes Omnibus
@lahru: Rights are not up for a vote. If they can be denied to one person, they can be denied to any person. At that point, one is talking about privileges not rights.
tbogg
To be fair, the Reese Witherspoon lookalike was “chunky” if not downright plump.
Douthat? Deeper in the closet than your high school lettermens jacket…
DougJ
@tbogg:
I agree.
cmorenc
@Walker:
@ toujoursdan:
The only “unwise” thing about insisting on that choice of site at this moment is the fact that it untimely hands cynically opportunistic Republicans a chance to deliberately stir xenophobic resentment against Muslims as a hot-button issue in an election year. Unfortunately, the latest opinion polls show that this ugly tactic seems to be working, especially with independents.
On principle, I entirely agree – they should have EVERY right to construct the mosque at the chosen site, and they’ve taken EVERY proper legal step necessary in preparation thereto. I also think that very ugly, falsely prejudicial assumptions have been made about the sponsoring group’s nature, with very little actual evidence beyond that boils down to the assertion that: he terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 (and whom we’ve been fighting for a decade) claim that muslim faith requires them to fight jihad against the US, the people wanting to build the temple are Muslims, therefore they’re terrorist supporters until they prove beyond a shadow of a doubt otherwise (i.e. by renouncing use of the site for a Mosque). This amounts to demanding that Christians build no further churches in New York City because it was Christians who tortured people during the inquisition who weren’t of sufficiently orthodox Catholic faith, and therefore Christians in America must first prove that they’ve renounced torture before such should even be considered…um, whups.
All I’m saying is that I simply wish this issue wasn’t coming to a head right now, as opposed to say, in January 2011.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
That’s interesting, because my lesbian Aunt says just the opposite. She sees no reason why she should climb onto a sinking ship when she’s doing just fine as is.
danimal
@cmorenc:
The xenophobes don’t need votes in Jan 11, so they’ll back off the issue. The timing of this is far from coincidental.
soonergrunt
@Brachiator: Thanks!
soonergrunt
@Martha: Thanks. We went over to my sister’s house today and we all hung out and celebrated my wife’s 39th birthday again. Just gotta try and keep busy. Working on the kids’ computers tomorrow.
Cain
@someguy:
Just wear some freakish clothes, make up, do your hair in bright colors and spikes and then sit outside for awhile. Let’s see what they do then.
They can’t control that part. It will drive them crazy. Once you start going down the “dress code” for your neighborhood, I’m pretty sure that is unconstitutional.
cain
Cain
@toujoursdan:
The other sects, Sunni and Shiite hate Sulfism. I think it shares some stuff with Hinduism as well.
cain
Yutsano
@Cain: The Sikh faith is a blending of Hindu and Islamic elements. The Sufi sect originated in Persia and is very prominent in the Stans including Afghanistan. In fact it astounds me the Taliban got as far as they did, for a very long time Afghans were majority Sufi not Deobandi or Wahhabi. I guess it’s the end result of having the most guns.
silentbeep
@tbogg: and to be fair chunky and sometimes “downright plump” girls are not necessarily de facto ugly, just as thin girls are not all necessarily de facto pretty. just sayin’
Amanda in the South Bay
@Cain:
Sufis can be Sunni or Shia; certainly elements of Sufism (like the Alevis in Turkey) share similarities with Shiism. Doctrinally many Sufis are at least nominal Sunnis, and don’t really exist apart from any normative tradition except among trendy Western baby boomer seekers.
Yutsano
@silentbeep: Okay y’all made me do this. It had to be done.
THE
Sects. Sects. Sects. Is that all you guys can talk about?
SiubhanDuinne
@THE #81: Win. Your intertoobz are on the way.
Michael Scott
I wish I could be quoted (anonymously) as Mr. Average American — I think I’d go for the Stephen Colbert creeper snark — the one wingnuts “get” about five minutes after you’ve walked away:
“Hell, yes, I want a mosque at Ground Zero! How else are the Muslims going to publicly repent for their collective guilt for 9-11?”
Joey Maloney
@cmorenc:
You gotta come up out of that defensive crouch, man. If it hadn’t been this, it would’ve been something else. You have to get it through your head that there is nothing, literally nothing that will appease or mollify these lunatics. It’s rule or ruin for them, and they will always be able to find or invent some new “outrage” to push their narrative.
The only possible strategy is to do what you think is right and when the manufactured controversy inevitably erupts, hit back. Hard.
matoko_chan
oh now thats a lie. Douthat is just a misogynistic creeper that is terrified of actually touching icky grrl parts.
he’d like us all to be sewn shut except for impregnation and delivery.
matoko_chan
@Amanda in the South Bay: oh please…such gobsmacking ignorance so unashamedly professed.
Sufism is simply the mystical tradtion of al-Islam and became more prominent after the assassination of Imam Ali which split the Sunni and the Shi’ia. Sufis can be any sect. I myself follow the mevlevi school.
Sufism draws most heavily from the Mu’tazhilite school which was driven out of existence during the Abbasid Caliphate, but who are are now seeing a resurgence under Dr. Ghamidi in Pakistan as neo-mu’tazhili.
matoko_chan
AMG
you idiots think sufis are fluffy love bunnies.
Am I a fluffy love bunnie?
no, the shi’ia and sunni don’t “hate” sufis.
several of the grand imams of al-Azhar have been sufis.
this guy is my favorite.
TJ Parker
Wow, we’re now seeing how little the radical right really thinks of the Constitution. Mob rule, eh?
Bender
Gosh, why bother listening to the “conservative argument” when you can just make up your own silly arguments and attribute it to them? Well done — nothing intellectually cowardly about that!
Frankly, it’s amazing how well gays have done over the last few millenia, having never been treated “like human beings.” Sold like cattle, they are! Going full-on screeching drama queen probably isn’t the best move in the gay rights debate, guys.
THE
@matoko_chan:
Yes. This could be you – Click on image for detail.