Kevin, please understand, I don’t disagree with your central point, nor your prescription of creating “more space” between the individual and the state. Truth be told, I was a raving libertarian in this and other regards, thinking that a strict, principled libertarianism could referee disputes between what factions. Unfortunately as we are seeing with Islam, the “refereeing” is almost totally anti-American and anti-Christian. I don’t know whether this is purely out fear or if there is something more nefarious going on (basically an anti-Christian/traditionalist/American conspiracy). We see this same paradigm operating with the push for amnesty for illegal aliens as well.

So, am I a hypocrite? yeah, I guess I am. Principles only get you so far, the real world is not reflective of Platonic realities but is messier. What I’m trying to say is that in order to maintain the liberal democratic values intact in this country, we’ve got to be cognizant of the culture that gave rise to it. If I saw one example in the world where this is happening with Islam, I’d say “go for it.” But the most liberal Islamic country in the world is Turkey and things are going downhill so fast there freedom-wise that it’s frightening.

Maybe there’s something inherent in Islam that does not allow for such liberalism. What do you think?

Churches run up against zoning problems all the time and in every state. We can’t build a church anywhere we are able to buy property just because we want to build a church. The purpose of the memorial at ground zero is to commemorate what happened at ground zero. Having a mosque choose a provocative name in a store that was destroyed by landing gear from terrorist acts of radical Islam violates the intent and purpose of the ground zero memorial.

There is no objection to building a mosque, just not there. We’d say the same thing if the Japanese wanted to build a Shinto shrine across the street from the entrace to the Pearl Harbor memorial.

If we can’t say no to the mosque, how did we say ‘no’ to the people who wanted to put their businesses back on the 9-11 spot? How did they say ‘no’ to the people who wanted to put their church back and now it’s an excavated pit.

Moreover there is a social policy at stake: allowing the mosque there is definitely encouragement to radical Islamic terrorists of tomorrow.

Kevin, you’ve hit the nail right upon the proverbial head. That’s why immigration should be heavily restricted. One of the worst things that the late, Sen Ted Kennedy did was spearhead the change in the immigration which he changed in 1965. Previous to that time, strict quotas governed immigration, with an emphasis on Europeans and Christians (nominally then the same thing). This btw was not all that great for my people: my dear grandfather overshot the quota back in 1928 and had to reenter a couple of years later. But we learned to live with it and became better for it (at least IMHO).

How will a conflict like this be rectified? Do we give in to it like Europe has? Or does the Governor of a state take over the administration of that city and force compliance to the law?

If Muslims live under American law and submit to it, there won’t be a problem. If they insist on Sharia in the civil and legal realm however and seek to replace American jurisprudence with Muslim jurisprudence, a line has to be drawn against it.

Partitioning is effectively the abrogation of the US Constitution; piecemeal succession without civil war.

Okay and I get your point. Here’s my counter argument. One of the strategic goals one hears from some Muslims about their diapora in the West is that eventually they seek to become the majority through procreation and immigration. I read one Muslim bragging about how this is a current reality in Dearborn, Michigan and should be their goal in other American cities and eventually entire states. So if nations should belong to a people who constitute its majority and that any minorities then (like me) should respect the folkways of the majority and not try to impose our views and customs on them. , as you suggest, what happens – I say God forbid!- if this would ever become a reality in certain states (which have the right to impose their own laws through their own state legislatures)? It seems the only way to protect against this is perhaps to create more – not less – space between the laws of the secular government and (any) religion. This is the context in which when I previously mentioned the term “Christian sharia law” versus Islamic sharia law. In this way NO ONE’S religious laws(IE “sharia”)or views trump another’s. I fear the genie is out of the bottle in terms of going back to the sort of Founding Fathers and Constitutional interpretative narrative you present. I think we need to look ahead to protect minority religious views because one day we Christians may be one!

But here goes: I fervently believe that our Founding Fathers did not view “freedom of religion” as the ACLU types do. Far from it. They had no problem at all with state-supported churches or religious tests for state office holders. The First Amendment was created to prevent the Congress from creating a “national church.”

Also, in reading their writings on the subject, the Founding Fathers always envisioned the United States as made up of Englishmen who adhered to the customs and traditions of Great Britain. This meant common law and the Christian religion. They made no provision for Islamic or Hindu or Buddhist immigration and would have thought it outlandish. Even Franklin was genuinely alarmed at the growing German immigration into his beloved Pennsylvania.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that nations should belong to a people who constitute its majority and that any minorities then (like me) should respect the folkways of the majority and not try to impose our views and customs on them. After all, if the ways of us immigrants were so successful and to be copied, then we wouldn’t have had to pull up stakes and come here.

Does this mean that I don’t believe in Evangelism? Not at all. I very much believe that a more orthopractic, traditional Orthodox faith, one respectful of the American experience, can and will become a major part of the American experience. Of course, we’re Christians and I believe that is why we have a starting chance to do so, because America was founded by Christians and continues to live off the accrued capital of two millennia of Christianity.

Islam doesn’t have this claim on America, neither demographic nor cultural. It is very much a foreign implant, as is Hinduism, Jainism, etc. These people should be allowed to worship as they please but if they push against the American grain, we should not feel any compunction about pushing back.

The use of the terms “Christian sharia law” really doesn’t apply here. My apologies.

Kevin

Think of what a goldmine 8 years of correspondence and emails are……

A full release of public records is the best way to shed light on this ongoing dispute.

Harry and George, Is there a word for “Freedom of Information Act” in Greek????

With all the pull Greeks have in lefty quarters and in NYC in particular eight years is too long a time for red tape to be the reason there was no building.

Andrew, Harry, I fear that there is significant skullduggery behind the scenes, that the Sob Sisters of 79th St don’t want the light to shine too brightly on this matter.

Fr, what I should have said was “yes, probably more atrocities, but it’s equally possible that there might be fewer.” My point was that regardless of what transpires, we got to do what is right and damn the consequences. My larger point is that there is no appeasing Islamic civilization in general. It has been on a relentless drive for domination since its very foundation. It only retreats when we push back, a la Charles Martel and the Reconquista.