A new Public Policy Survey of New York Republicans shed some light on the paradoxical behavior of the GOP. It turns out that the self titled Party of Family Values would rather build a strip club on Ground Zero than a mosque. 21% of Republicans supported the strip club, and only 4% supported the mosque.
On his radio show this morning, Michael Savage launched a vicious personal attack against Jon Stewart because The Daily Show host exposed the illogical lunacy of the fear mongering opposition to the Park 51 project. Savage blamed Stewart for spreading anti-Semitism, and called him an inbred Jew.
If you can believe it, Fox News has moved on to even more inflammatory rhetoric on the Park 51 project. Tonight on The O’Reilly Factor, Dick Morris called the community center would be a, “center for terrorism” if it was built.
“Since then, the American-led counteroffensive has done much to turn back the Islamist tide.” Carafano revealed that the Heritage Foundation believes the Afghan war is a war on Islam; not a war on terror.
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart came with a solution for those who are concerned about the funding for the “Ground Zero Mosque,” being that the project is being funded by a Fox News co-owner, he suggested that people stop watching Fox News, “My point is this if we want to cut off funding to the terror mosque. We must together as a nation, stop watching Fox.”
While the constitution forbids prohibiting a mosque from being built blocks away from ground zero (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”), Republicans are salivating at the prospect of ignoring the constitution (again) and using this for political hay. Apparently, the Family Values Party is not concerned with the strip clubs (like New York Dolls) that surround hallowed ground (after all, we all know that Hooters is a family restaurant and Fox News is not conservative day time porn), because nothing says Christian Values and Apple Pie like a strip club.
Like bugs to light, Republicans are attracted to 9/11 fear mongering, and with the flap over the proposed mosque and community center two blocks from Ground Zero, the man in charge of the GOP’s efforts to retake the Senate, Sen. John Cornyn suggested that the GOP is ready to make 9/11 an issue again this November, but by playing the politics of fear, the GOP could ensure failure in November.
During his remarks at the traditional White House Iftar dinner, President Obama used the language of the Tea Party to defend religious freedom, and announce his support for the Ground Zero Mosque, “I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to…
Forty different Catholic, evangelical, mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders and scholars came together to release a statement condemning the hate language of Fox News, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich as it relates to the so called Ground Zero mosque, “Fear-mongering and hateful rhetoric only undermine treasured values at the heart of diverse faith traditions and our nation’s highest ideals.”
Everyone is by now familiar with the “Ground Zero Mosque†controversy. Cries of horror have ascended to the heavens from the right-wing as they denounce Muslim plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero. But xenophobia, to be more precise, Islamophobia, most of it originating from conservative Christians, is not fact-friendly. Bottom line is that it’s getting put where it can be put, to serve an existing need in Lower Manhattan.
