NYC to alleged “Ground-Zero Mosque”:

Another post I didn’t want to write. Mainly because the subject has already been talked to death; from the interwebs to the mainstream media, everybody but me has weighed in by now. (I’ve been extremely busy feeling sorry for myself for no appreciable reason other than missing the current RUSH tour.)

But there’s something I’m not hearing in the discourse about the supposed “Ground-Zero Mosque” which compels me to once again torture my forefinger-tips. It’s not racism or xenophobia that’s missing, no, I’ve heard plenty of both. Chest-thumping and flag-waving? Check and check.

All the responsible coverage (which by my definition immediately excludes Fox News and MSNBC) seems to center around either the sensibilities of 9/11 survivors and first-responders, who are understandably offended; and how a mosque at Ground Zero would become a gathering place for would-be and future terrorists (too stupid a proposition for me to even dignify with a comment, especially after Jon Stewart exposed its ridiculousness so nicely this week already).

Here’s what occurred to me has been missing from the debate, from least important to most.

Least important niggling factoid: I was pissed too at first, when I heard they wanted to put a mosque AT Ground Zero. But as anyone can see by the map above, the proposed mosque isn’t at Ground Zero. It’s a couple blocks away. And in big city downtowns, two blocks can make the difference between a thriving redevelopment area with chain stores and artist’s lofts—and brown-bag winos and drive-by shootings. And the proposed mosque is two blocks away, in the middle of the block, out of sight of the still-fresh wound that is the un-reconstructed Ground Zero.

The thing that initially, mistakenly pissed me off leads me to the second, actually meritorious angle that isn’t being discussed, or at least I haven’t seen it. I’m pretty mainstream media-oriented, so if it’s only been on HuffPo or the Drudge Report, I have missed it and I apologize for wasting your time.

The reason I still think it’s a bad idea to put a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero—even a couple of blocks away, out of sight—is not because I’m afraid of who’s going to come to it to worship, but who’s going to come to vandalize or destroy it. Especially with nothing else up yet in the place of the fallen Towers, building a high-profile mosque in their former shadow is going to attract every kind of nut-job with an axe to grind and two tons of fertilizer in his rented moving van.

Like it or not, this controversy has made the place a target. A big red, pulsating neon target. And not just to right-wing, home-grown dipshits like the all-American kid who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. But mosques the world over are repeatedly blown up by their faithful’s own internecine squabbles.

Let’s be perfectly honest, Islam’s fringies have earned themselves a rep as the baddest, most ruthless religious zealots currently plying their bloodthirsty trade on the world stage. They’ll kill anybody and everybody—including themselves—at the drop of a hat. Even Stephen Colbert doesn’t fuck with Muslims.

I live two blocks away from both a Mormon temple and a Baptist Church, and I’m not sweatin’ it. I wouldn’t live a blast radius away from a mosque, however. Not these days.

There’s every good reason in the world not to put this particular mosque in that particular site at this particular time and only one reason not to—that damned pesky Constitution. And single-occasion events don’t rise to level of importance to justify fucking with the Constitution. Not even 9/11 and certainly not a single house of worship.

So my plea is for the proposed mosque’s owners to find a less high-profile place to put their house of worship. Practically anywhere else in the world would be fine. There are plenty of lovely neighborhoods in New York to build a new, classy-looking place of worship (inset); locations that Fox News and Tea Party candidates won’t be able to spin into ratings and electoral gold.

And, more importantly, locations that won’t put punishing you for your perceived temerity at the top of every homicidal zealot’s—literally from here to Timbuktu—To-Do list.

Just the same, I’m not optimistic that cooler heads will prevail, especially where matters of religion and 9/11 are concerned. If I were the Amish market currently next door to the proposed mosque, I’d hitch up my wagon and go looking for greener pastures until the whole issue blows over. Or up.