A Hollow Debate Over "Hallowed Ground"
Seth F. Kreimer is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania
When I teach law students how to analyze a constitutional case, I drill into them one lesson: always start with the facts.
So when I was asked to opine on TV last week about the proposed construction of a "Ground Zero Mosque," my first instinct was to look into the facts of the case. As a lawyer, those facts made it clear to me that opposition to the "Ground Zero Mosque" cannot claim to uphold American law. But as an American citizen, they made something else clear to me: opposition cannot claim to uphold American ideals.
What exactly did the research turn up? My first attempt led me to understand some things apparent to anyone who takes time to look: the project is not at Ground Zero--it's 2 ? blocks away. It's also not a mosque-- it's the equivalent of a YMCA with dedicated prayer space. Even without the proposed construction, up to 600 local Muslims have been praying there for the last two years.
Next, I used a research tool not available when I was in law school: "Google maps." It turns out that across the street from Ground Zero stands St. Peter's Catholic Church.
Moving out from the site, we come to St. Paul's Chapel, the River Church, the Glad Tidings Tabernacle and a Christian Science reading room. So the constitutional issue is this: When large portions of the public find the placement of a Muslim prayer space offensive, may an American city exclude it from an area already occupied by five other religious institutions?
As a matter of law, the question is not even close. There are not many cases directly on point; happily, American localities do not make a custom of excluding places of worship on these sorts of grounds. Still, my research did turn up one parallel.
In 1952, Pawtucket, Rhode Island tried to exclude Jehovah's Witnesses from preaching in Slater Park. The City admitted that both Methodist ministers and Catholic priests could preach to their congregations in the park, but claimed that addresses by Jehovah's Witnesses would lead to "annoyance and disorder." A year later, in Fowler v. Rhode Island the Supreme Court unanimously repudiated Pawtucket. It held the city's effort to prefer some religious groups over others was barred both by the First Amendment's protection of free exercise of religion and by the Fourteenth Amendment's guaranty of equal protection. That result would be no different today.
But what of the feelings of the families who lost members on 9/11? Some politicians report to us that 9/11 families feel profoundly angered and insulted by the proposed construction.
The answer begins with facts my research discovered in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Act opens with findings in Section 102 that highlight the heroism of Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23 year old New York City police cadet, trained as an emergency medical technician. On 9/11 he was on his way to work as a research assistant at Rockefeller University. When the Patriot Act was adopted in the white heat of 9/11, Congress noted that Salman Hamdani was "believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing." Six months later, workers identified 34 pieces of Salman Hamdani's body in the wreckage of Ground Zero. They notified his mother, Talat Hamdani and she buried the parts of his body in a Muslim service.
Talat Hamdani recently co-authored an article in the New York Daily News entitled The case for a mosque near Ground Zero: Two mothers of 9/11 heroes argue for a Muslim center there. Should we accord Talat Hamdani's feelings a dignity equal to the feelings of the other families? If we do, it becomes hard to call dedicating a space where she can pray as a Muslim near the spot that her son gave his life a misuse of hallowed ground.
Ideals of religious liberty and equal respect are embedded in our constitution. But the Constitution is not just a guide for courts. A century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the cemetery containing the graves of the American soldiers who died at Gettysburg. He observed that "we cannot hallow this ground" because they "have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln concluded that the issue was not the dedication of the ground but the dedication of our nation. America was wounded on September 11 and grieving families are still traumatized and angry.
It is to our credit that we feel their trauma and share their anger. But we face a choice. We can define ourselves as a nation of trauma and anger. Or we can consecrate our loss by renewing the American heritage as a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
In choosing, let's remember Abraham Lincoln- and Mohammed Salman Hamdani.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
By Seth F. Kreimer::
Special to CBSNews.com
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. When I teach law students how to analyze a constitutional case, I drill into them one lesson: always start with the facts.
So when I was asked to opine on TV last week about the proposed construction of a "Ground Zero Mosque," my first instinct was to look into the facts of the case. As a lawyer, those facts made it clear to me that opposition to the "Ground Zero Mosque" cannot claim to uphold American law. But as an American citizen, they made something else clear to me: opposition cannot claim to uphold American ideals.
What exactly did the research turn up? My first attempt led me to understand some things apparent to anyone who takes time to look: the project is not at Ground Zero--it's 2 ? blocks away. It's also not a mosque-- it's the equivalent of a YMCA with dedicated prayer space. Even without the proposed construction, up to 600 local Muslims have been praying there for the last two years.
Next, I used a research tool not available when I was in law school: "Google maps." It turns out that across the street from Ground Zero stands St. Peter's Catholic Church.
Moving out from the site, we come to St. Paul's Chapel, the River Church, the Glad Tidings Tabernacle and a Christian Science reading room. So the constitutional issue is this: When large portions of the public find the placement of a Muslim prayer space offensive, may an American city exclude it from an area already occupied by five other religious institutions?
As a matter of law, the question is not even close. There are not many cases directly on point; happily, American localities do not make a custom of excluding places of worship on these sorts of grounds. Still, my research did turn up one parallel.
In 1952, Pawtucket, Rhode Island tried to exclude Jehovah's Witnesses from preaching in Slater Park. The City admitted that both Methodist ministers and Catholic priests could preach to their congregations in the park, but claimed that addresses by Jehovah's Witnesses would lead to "annoyance and disorder." A year later, in Fowler v. Rhode Island the Supreme Court unanimously repudiated Pawtucket. It held the city's effort to prefer some religious groups over others was barred both by the First Amendment's protection of free exercise of religion and by the Fourteenth Amendment's guaranty of equal protection. That result would be no different today.
But what of the feelings of the families who lost members on 9/11? Some politicians report to us that 9/11 families feel profoundly angered and insulted by the proposed construction.
The answer begins with facts my research discovered in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Act opens with findings in Section 102 that highlight the heroism of Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23 year old New York City police cadet, trained as an emergency medical technician. On 9/11 he was on his way to work as a research assistant at Rockefeller University. When the Patriot Act was adopted in the white heat of 9/11, Congress noted that Salman Hamdani was "believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing." Six months later, workers identified 34 pieces of Salman Hamdani's body in the wreckage of Ground Zero. They notified his mother, Talat Hamdani and she buried the parts of his body in a Muslim service.
Talat Hamdani recently co-authored an article in the New York Daily News entitled The case for a mosque near Ground Zero: Two mothers of 9/11 heroes argue for a Muslim center there. Should we accord Talat Hamdani's feelings a dignity equal to the feelings of the other families? If we do, it becomes hard to call dedicating a space where she can pray as a Muslim near the spot that her son gave his life a misuse of hallowed ground.
Ideals of religious liberty and equal respect are embedded in our constitution. But the Constitution is not just a guide for courts. A century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the cemetery containing the graves of the American soldiers who died at Gettysburg. He observed that "we cannot hallow this ground" because they "have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln concluded that the issue was not the dedication of the ground but the dedication of our nation. America was wounded on September 11 and grieving families are still traumatized and angry.
It is to our credit that we feel their trauma and share their anger. But we face a choice. We can define ourselves as a nation of trauma and anger. Or we can consecrate our loss by renewing the American heritage as a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
In choosing, let's remember Abraham Lincoln- and Mohammed Salman Hamdani.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
By Seth F. Kreimer::
Special to CBSNews.com
numbnuts,a CLOSET MUSLIM,an enemy of AMERICA,and a unabashed PIECE-OF-**** who hides and cowers beneath the cloak of INTERNET ANONYMITY!!
skeeterandbucky:I would be insulting self-respecting **** everywhere if I were to contend that YOU had **** for BRAINS!!
skeeterandbucky:Burn a BIG FAT ONE yourself,*******,because YOU are the one who must have been HIGH as a ******' KITE when you posted your ridiculous rejoinders!!YOU obviously cannot talk,think,reason,debate,or even **** your way out of a paper bag!!
skeeterandbucky:FYI,I go around billing myself as AN ATHEIST!!I do not approve of any organized religions!!Which once again proves that YOU are a '****,a dork,a doofus,a nothing & a nobody!!
skeeteranbucky:The *somethings* which YOU so desperately need would be brains,wits,street smarts,logic,commom sense,intelligence,reason,soul and humanity!!
skeeterandbucky:You must be INSANE to say that *I* am scarier than a TERRORIST MUSLIM!!*I* have never killed anyone!!*I* have never harmed anyone physically in my entire life!!Nor have *I* ever plotted genocide,which is the ultimate objective of the ******* MUSLIMS which this CBSNEWS.COM website's LOONEY TUNES message posters have so sadly chosen to CODDLE & EMBRACE!!
skeeterandbucky:Why don't YOU do all of PRO AMERICAN humanity a big ******* favor by planting your SICKFUCK self right smack dabble in the middle of the *eye* of the hurricane called EARL??!! I'll laff my ******* ass off as 100MPH WINDS rip your TINY GirlyMan nuts out of their sockets!!
skeeterandbucky:Why don't you now dress yourself up in a veil,burkha,and headscarf!!It's LIBERAL DUMBASSES such as yourself who are surely dooming the rest of us to THE LIVING HELL KNOWN AS SHARIA LAW!!
skeeterandbucky:Only hippie **** such as yourself use the dopey word "DUDE"!!
skeeterandbucky:GO SMOKE *YOUR* DOOBIES,DUDE!!
skeeterandbucky:I'll laugh until I **** myself when MUSLIMS chop off *your* INFIDEL HEAD!!
PROUDLY SIGNED,
THE I-HATE-LIBERALS GUY!!!!
***************************************
(scroll downward to be bored to tears by the horrible riposte and unwarranted personal attack submitted by PRO MUSLIM ******** skeeterandbucky)
>>To THE I-HATE-LIBERALS GUY: You are a freaking nut job. Man I hope you wiped the spit off your monitor after that series of rants. And the foam off the corners of your mouth. Your F ing scarier than any Stephen King novel or Muslim for that matter. I'm guessing on top of it all, you probably go around billing yourself as a Christian to boot. Dude,liberal or not burn a fat one and then go get some serious help. Maybe you can figure out how to free base some Librium cause you need something.<<
>>SKEETERANDBUCKY<<
numbnuts,a CLOSET MUSLIM,an enemy of AMERICA,and a unabashed PIECE-OF-**** who hides and cowers beneath the cloak of INTERNET ANONYMITY!!
skeeterandbucky:I would be insulting self-respecting **** everywhere if I were to contend that YOU had **** for BRAINS!!
skeeterandbucky:Burn a BIG FAT ONE yourself,*******,because YOU are the one who must have been HIGH as a ******' KITE when you posted your ridiculous rejoinders and your unwarranted insults and AD HOMINEM ATTACKS!!
skeeterandbucky:YOU obviously cannot talk,think,reason,debate,or even **** your way out of a paper bag!!
skeeterandbucky:FYI,I go around billing myself as AN ATHEIST!!I do not approve of any organized religions!!Which once again proves that YOU are a '****,a dork,a doofus,a nothing & a nobody!!
skeeteranbucky:The *somethings* which YOU so desperately need would be brains,wits,street smarts,logic,education,literacy,commom sense,intelligence,reason,soul and humanity!!
skeeterandbucky:You must be INSANE to say that *I* am scarier than a TERRORIST MUSLIM!!*I* have never killed anyone!!*I* have never harmed anyone physically in my entire life!!Nor have *I* ever plotted genocide,which is the ultimate objective of the ******* MUSLIMS which this CBSNEWS.COM website's LOONEY TUNES message posters have so sadly chosen to CODDLE & EMBRACE!!
skeeterandbucky:Why don't YOU do all of PRO AMERICAN humanity a big ******* favor by planting your SICKFUCK self right smack dabble in the middle of the *eye* of the hurricane called EARL??!! I'll laff my ******* ass off as 100MPH WINDS rip your TINY GirlyMan nuts out of their sockets!!
skeeterandbucky:Why don't you now dress yourself up in a veil,burkha,and headscarf!!It's LIBERAL DUMBASSES such as yourself who are surely dooming the rest of us to THE LIVING HELL KNOWN AS SHARIA LAW!!
skeeterandbucky:Only hippie **** such as yourself use the dopey word "DUDE"!!
skeeterandbucky:GO SMOKE *YOUR* DOOBIES,DUDE!!
skeeterandbucky:I'll laugh until I **** myself when MUSLIMS chop off *your* INFIDEL HEAD!!
PROUDLY SIGNED,
THE I-HATE-LIBERALS GUY!!!!
(scroll downward to be bored to tears by this horrible riposte and unwarranted personal attack was submitted by PRO MUSLIMS ******** skeeterandbucky)
>>To THE I-HATE-LIBERALS GUY: You are a freaking nut job. Man I hope you wiped the spit off your monitor after that series of rants. And the foam off the corners of your mouth. Your F ing scarier than any Stephen King novel or Muslim for that matter. I'm guessing on top of it all, you probably go around billing yourself as a Christian to boot. Dude,liberal or not burn a fat one and then go get some serious help. Maybe you can figure out how to free base some Librium cause you need something.>>
(skeeterandbucky)
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-215_162-6818782-0.html?assetTypeId=30&blogId=&tag=contentMain;contentBody#ixzz0ySU0lqof
You are totally wrong. Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God. The God of Abraham. You really should not engage in conversations you know nothing about. Read your history. As a matter of fact, some historians note that Abraham helped in building the Cabal. Although you probably don't know the significance of that.
I would like to impart that none of those five other churches breed terrorists!!
Not all muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are muslim.
Take my point.
Even Jesus said, " Woe to you also lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Does this sound like the work of our Government? Sounds like it to me.)
Jesus said, "Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered."
So the mosque will be 2 1/2 blocks away from ground zero....and dead human dust particles blew on its building and on the buildings alot further away and is prob. still there. ... so whats your point, to me anywhere within ten blocks or more from ground zero is sacred ground and should not be tampered with. You name the churches in the area, big deal, they were there before 9/11, this mosque wasn't. So the muslims prayed there, let them, why didn't they pray in the mosque that is four blocks away instead? If they want to build this mosque, or community center or whatever it is, it better have a church and a Jewish temple in it, etc. etc, but then again it wouldn't matter, you have 75% or more of Americans not wanting it anyways, do you think any of them opposed to it will enter its doors?.
The fact remains the Prophet Muhammed used a sword to kill his fellow human beings in order to spread Islam.
Whereas, Jesus used his heart, all his heart, and nothing but his heart to spread his message of love.
Violent jihadis are not betraying the original message of Muhammed.
While violent christians are betraying the original message of Jesus.
No, of course not.
Do I believe that people who claim to be Christians who profess to follow Christ yet hate 7,000,000 of their fellow American citizens are really Christians?
No, of course not.
.