By Bryan Fischer 

I agree completely with the 71% of New Yorkers who are vigorously opposed to a mosque at Ground Zero. What opponents of the Ground Zero mosque do not seem to realize is that they are making my case that Americans have the moral right to deny permits to build mosques anywhere. 

The argument against a Ground Zero mosque is essentially of the “not-in-my-backyard” variety. It’s inappropriate, that’s not the place for a mosque, it’s insensitive, etc. 

But what if the people ten blocks from Ground Zero don’t want it there for similar reasons? Or a mile away? Where exactly is the line of demarcation here?  

The point here is simply this: if New Yorkers can make the inapropriateness argument, why can’t people in Murfreesboro, Tennessee? Or people in Chicago? Or Mayfield, Kentucky? 

In other words, why do only New Yorkers have the right to argue that a mosque shouldn’t be built in the middle of their community? Why is everybody else just supposed to suck it up with no complaint, even if they have objections of similar kinds? 

Surely people will say that a mosque at Ground Zero is wrong because the mosque would be built by followers of the same religion whose adherents killed 3,000 Americans on that spot on 9/11. Fine. What if the people in Murfreesboro are equally troubled by what was done to Americans on 9/11? Why do only New Yorkers have the right to be sufficiently offended by what happened on 9/11 to stop a mosque project in their town? 

No community in America would permit the building of a mini-Auschwitz erected to perpetuate the teaching and memory of Adolf Hitler, despite the fact that the Holocaust happened on another continent altogether. And the argument would be the same. We don’t want a mini-Auschwitz in our town because we find Naziism offensive and completely contrary to American values. 

You’re welcome to believe in Naziism, and put as many pictures of Adolf Hitler in your home as you want. But you’re going to get a permit to build a building in his honor in our town. We’re not going to let you build a center for the training of Storm Troopers in our community. Period. 

Yet Islam is just as virulently anti-Semitic as Naziism was, and is just as dedicated to the extermination of Jews as Hitler was. In fact, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, spent World War II hanging with his home boys in Germany and sipping tea with Adolf himself. Why should communities be forced to have centers for the propagation of anti-Semitic genocide built in their communities, whether it’s of the Nazi kind or the Islamic kind? 

We wouldn’t let Hitler revivalists hide behind a religious liberty veneer, even though Hitler’s SS boys wore belt buckles that read “Gott Mit Uns” - “God is with us.” 

Muslim values are grossly incompatible with American values. Muslims do not believe in religious liberty, they believe in sharia law rather than in the Ten Commandments and American law, they do not believe in freedom of conscience, they do not believe in equality before the law for Christians, Jews, or women, and they teach that husbands can literally beat their wives into submission. They teach that Jews are apes and Christians are pigs. 

There is nothing in our Constitution that requires us to give space to an institution that is determined to wipe out the Constitution. In fact, the one crime identified in the Constitution is treason against the United States. So not only do we not have to give room to those who “adhere” to the enemies of our way of life or give them “Aid and Comfort,” we can put them in jail. 

Is every mosque a center for terrorism? Nope. But 80% of the mosques in America are funded by Saudi Arabia, which sends them literature to distribute to their attendees which call for the blood of infidel Christians and Jews. Thus 80% of the mosques in America are almost certainly teaching and preaching violent jihad against America. They are teaching violence against their host country. That’s not religion, that’s treason. 

If a group of Muslims is willing publicly - say, in front of a zoning board or a city council - to renounce the 109 verses in the Koran that call for the spilling of infidel blood, if they are willing to renounce the verses that call for second-class citizenship for Jews and Christians, if they are willing to renounce the verses that call for the decapitation of Muslims who convert to Christianity, if they are willing to renounce the verses that call for husbands to beat their wives into submission, if they are willing to publicly declare that Christians and Jews are not pigs and apes but rather human beings created in the image of God, and if they are willing to publicly state that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state and that Hamas is a terrorist organization, then they should be allowed to build as many mosques as they want. But then they wouldn’t be building mosques at that point, would they? 

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)