Joel Mathis

"Capt. Jack Gilles," a reader of the Scripps Howard column , writes to challenge my position in favor of the Cordoba House mosque at Ground Zero. If there is no debate then:Shouldn’t ground zero not contain a Synagogue and a Church as well as a mosque ? And my response to this is: Of course! If any Jewish or Christian congregations want to build near the site and there's a space for them, let them build! I don't advocate for the Cordoba House because I'm an evangelist for the Muslim faith; I advocate for the Cordoba House because I believe in American values and laws, particularly as represented in the First Amendment. Gilles also repeats the canard that the the Cordoba House mosque amounts, essentially, to trophy-claiming by Muslims for their "victory" on 9/11. It's a common view -- one, again, that assumes that American Muslims are indistinguishable from Osama bin Laden in their beliefs and sympathies. I do not believe that and I do not grant

I'm starting to wonder if President Obama can give nuanced speeches on controversial topics only when his own bacon is in the fire.  Because in the history of cowardly question-ducking, this one goes pretty high on the list : As the proposal to build a 13-story Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero moves forward and controversy surrounding the plan grows, top New York Democrats are maintaining radio silence on the matter. President Obama is also declining to take a position on the issue. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today the decision to build the mosque next to Ground Zero is "rightly a matter for New York City and the local community to decide." When a reporter asked why Obama would use his powers of moral suasion on other issues where religious freedom is concerned, but not this issue, Gibbs ducked the question and said it was a local matter. This is Grade A political cowardice. And it's furthermore nonsensical: The First Amendment is a "loca

That's the topic of my Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk this week. Since you already got most of my take in blog form last week , let me do something different and focus on Ben's take. An excerpt: Now let's contrast Washington with Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the Cordoba House project who wrote a fascinating book in 2004 called "What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America." In it, Rauf casually argues that the U.S. Constitution and the core principles of Islamic law (sharia) are not in conflict at all and, indeed, the "American political structure is sharia-compliant." "Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common," Rauf wrote, stressing that sharia's support for "political justice" and "economic justice ... for the weak and impoverished" "sounds suspiciously like the Declaration of Independence." To the casual reader, maybe. Fact is, sharia doe

A few years ago, a friend of mine -- an editor, only about 10 years older than I, a man of some Italian lineage -- looked ahead to the 2008 elections and declared, flatly, that Barack Obama would never be president. "Nobody becomes president whose last name ends in a vowel," he said. The remark struck me, because I wasn't really used to thinking of my friend in ethnic terms.(He'd was a little over-rhapsodic about "The Sopranos," but then again, what man wasn't?) But my friend was heir to a not-so-distant history, the son of a family that -- thanks to its Mediterranean origins -- had just a few decades previous been considered not- quite -fully American. By 2005 or 2006, whenever I had that discussion with my friend, those days seemed past -- but he still felt it in his bones. I thought about my friend last night, when I read the New York Times' story about how the Anti-Defamation League has decided to oppose the Cordoba House, better known as

Oh, Stu. Stu Bykofsky's at it again. He's in the Daily News today, taking on the "Ground Zero mosque" issue by decrying the intolerance and insensitivity ... of the left. No really. I don't oppose building Cordoba House or Park51, or whatever it's called this week, near Ground Zero, but I understand why many dislike the location. They are assaulted by the Hard Left as un-American, Islamophobic bigots. Is that fair? Is there no other possible explanation for their opposition? The Hard Left demands, rightfully, that we not judge all Muslims by the acts of a few, but then judges all conservatives by the acts or remarks of a few. It's disheartening that the same progressives who condemned Sen. Joe McCarthy's guilt-by-association tactics find it so easy to smear their opponents. I'm not quite sure who all Stu is lumping into the "hard left" here, but I get the feeling it includes a lot of people who are merely, you know, liberal

Writing in the Wall Street Journal , Irshad Maji suggests that both sides of the "Ground Zero Mosque" debate have been emoting more than thinking. To cut through the clutter, he  she suggests that the following questions be posed to the Cordoba House/Park 51/Whatever Is Is This Week organizers: • Will the swimming pool at Park51 be segregated between men and women at any time of the day or night? • May women lead congregational prayers any day of the week • Will Jews and Christians, fellow People of the Book, be able to use the prayer sanctuary for their services just as Muslims share prayer space with Christians and Jews in the Pentagon? (Spare me the technocratic argument that the Pentagon is a governmental, not private, building. Park51 may be private in the legal sense but is a public symbol par excellence.) • What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy? • Where does one sign up for advance tickets to Salman Rushdie'