From the Goldberg File: Making a Mosquery of the Truth

BY: Jonah Goldberg

I cannot be alone in thinking that the mosque debate is getting really old. But since I still seem to be in the minority, here are three quick points that I think need to be given more air.

1. The liberals are the ideologues on this. Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama have claimed countless times that they are non-ideological pragmatists. But their position, right or wrong, is wildly ideological. Meanwhile, conservatives who say, "Fine, build your mosque, just not right there," are the pragmatists. But conservative pragmatism is never recognized as such if it breaks with the liberal party line. When conservatism breaks with liberalism, it must be denounced as ideology or, of course, bigotry.

2. Stop calling it a mosque. Defenders of Cordoba House sometimes say, "It's not a mosque, it's a cultural-affairs center with a prayer room," or some such, as if this were a defense. To me, that makes it worse, not better. If this were some small, one-story mosque for the handful of Muslims living nearby to pray in, the arguments over freedom of religion would have more merit. But this would be a 13-story institution with an obvious political component to it. That strikes me as gaudy and an invitation to mischief. This is another point I think non-bigoted Americans understand better than the condescending supporters of the mosque.

3. The staggering hypocrisy of liberals is really an amazing thing. Everywhere you look, you hear these scandalized liberals talking as if it were beyond the pale to criticize religion. You'd never know that these overnight stalwarts of religious freedom had been demonizing Christian conservatives, Mormons, and increasingly orthodox Jews for years. It's as if these people never wanted to ban a crèche, outlaw a Christian group, or claim that Jewish supporters of Israel suffer from dual loyalties. I'm not making a two-wrongs-make-a-right point here. I do think that some of the rhetoric on the right goes too far -- Newt's Nazi analogy, for instance. But it is amazing how establishment liberalism can spend years demonizing organized religion in this country only to turn on a dime when it comes to defending the Islamic equivalent of NikeTown two blocks from Ground Zero.