“That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” (State of Virginia, 1789)
what i love about this segment is that john stewart is coming at this whole thing from outside the box.
within the framework of “muslims did 9/11” any argument to the contrary will look defensive and weak. for if muslims did 9/11 then it is a slap in the face of the victims to build a “mosque” to the muslim god, in close proximity to ground zero.
however, that framework itself is flawed. “muslims” didn’t do 9/11, misguided militant extremists did. so muslims have every right to build an islamic center in ny just like jews have the right to build jewish centers in ny and elsewhere.
the funny thing is, even if we buy the govt’s story on 9/11 (and it’s hard to do that in view of the govt’s track record), then 9/11 was all about politics and american foreign policy. it was hardly a religious event – how have islam or muslims benefited from what happened? in fact, muslims have suffered most grievously as a consequence of that crime. i guess the idea was to bring the war to the u.s. and make it rethink the wars it funds and carries out in other parts of the world.
stewart is cleverly pointing out that american muslims have the right to practice their religion and build houses of worship like other americans. the constitution guarantees that right. in focusing on that he sidesteps the erroneous argument that “muslims” did 9/11 for some “islamic” reason.
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