More on Park51 and intolerance toward Muslims

I called some of the opponents of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque bigots in the headline to a column I wrote last week. I stand by my characterization and ask that they explain how the singling out of Muslims is anything but ugly religious bias. This column, which ran in the South Brunswick Post today by a longtime resident and friend, only underscores my point.

Note, by the way, how Mr. Rasmussen elides four of the five elements of the First Amendment, making it about speech and speech along and ignoring the religious establishment clause — which is the first one listed in the Amendment. No one is saying Park51 opponents can’t speak or that they cannot say bigoted and ugly things. They can. But when they do, they should expect to be called out on it.

On a side note, I keep hearing about debris from one of the hijacked planes hitting the building proposed for the Park51 but the only documentation anyone has provided has been something on Wikipedia. Wikipedia? Really? I tell my students and my reporters that Wikipedia is not a reliable source — it is open source and much of it has not been vetted. In any case, I still can’t figure out what that has to do with anything.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet