re: #335 Judith

And I am feeling like Marduhai right now. This no longer feels like a place for reasoned careful consideration of facts. It feels like a place for knee jerk name calling of anyone who disagrees with you.

The fact is, in the US the concept of a “right” is not dependent upon how people feel. This is the same problem with the Prop. 8 supporters.

Whether it is 1, 10, 100, or a million people who feel like the Park51 project is wrong or bad or evil or… etc… is not a matter that should be the basis of stopping the thing.

Furthermore, making room for such feelings in decisions like this is itself problematic as those involved in the anti-Park51 movement have great overlap with a multitude of anti-Moslem effluence pouring out over this country, so now it becomes an important matter to make clear exactly what the important issues are.

And the important issue is this: the right for a group of people in this country to conduct their religious beliefs as they see fit, as long as they are not harming anyone else.

Being an affront to your sensibilities is not “harming” in this sense.

So I give no room to the type of emotional angst the anti-Park51 movement so much wants to make the basis of law (in practice) in this country.