Where Does the Mosque Backlash Fit Into the History of American Tolerance

Amid all the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero Islamic center and mosque, the most memorable comment I’ve seen was made by a New York State assemblyman named Henry Meigs.

“The constitution of this state,” Meigs said, “guarantees equally the religion of all. The Jew, who believes the blessed Savior an imposter; the Egyptian who worships a crocodile or an onion; the Pagan who worships the sun; the Indian who pays divine honors to sticks and stones; the worshipper of Odin; the Chinese or the Mahometans. All persuasions, denominations or religions are equally protected.”

The language is antique—not to mention colorful—because Meigs made his statement in 1818. (You can find the quote in Ilyon Woo’s new book, The Great Divorce.) He was speaking in defense of the Shakers, a communal, celibate sect now best known for its furniture and for a tune Aaron Copland borrowed for Appalachian Spring. (The Shakers also invented the clothes pin.) But in the early part of the nineteenth century, they were suspected of all manner of malfeasance: murder, torture, kidnapping, child abuse, a conspiracy to gain world domination; even, despite their vows of chastity, “licentiousness.” Because of their strange ways (Taliban-like, a Shaker woman was prohibited from sewing a button on a man’s shirt if he was wearing it), they were also accused of undermining the institution of marriage. Meigs’s statement is inspiring not only because of the very contemporary sentiments it expresses, but also because it reminds us that the principle of religious freedom is as embedded in American history as is the bigotry Meigs was responding to.

Friends of mine who oppose the construction of the Ground Zero mosque insistently assure me that bigotry is not the only reason why someone might wish the center were built elsewhere, and I have no reason to doubt them because I know for a fact that they are not bigots. Even so, I cannot deny—nor would my friends—that animosity toward all Muslims and to the religion of Islam itself is a major motivating force behind the opposition. There is simply no getting around the truth that we would hear no objections if a church or synagogue were being proposed for the site. It’s hard to see how Henry Meigs isn’t relevant today.

Yes, my friends reply, the backers of the community center have the right to build it, but should they build it? It’s all a matter of sensitivity. The vast majority of Americans are offended by the project and however irrational their emotions, those feelings should be respected, if only for the sake of social and interfaith peace. This is a powerful point; reality is always an attractive argument. But is this one of those times when principle has to be upheld even if the consequences are unpleasant?
Since the modern culture clash with the Muslim world began, the urge to avoid giving offense to the emotionally aggrieved has had a sorry, cringe-making history. Turn to Christopher Hitchens’s chapter on Salman Rushdie in his memoir, Hitch-22, for a reminder of how the opening battle in this conflict played out. It’s not a pretty picture.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses, in 1989, condemnations rained down from the left and the right, but not so much on the Ayatollah as on the author who had provoked him. Religious leaders—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, spokesmen for the Vatican—all declared the problem was blasphemy, not censorship or death threats. Rushdie was said to have “abused freedom of speech.” Hitchens writes that “every ‘official’ human-rights committee in the nation’s capital turned me down when I asked them to sponsor a visit by Salman.” President George H.W. Bush refused to get involved, and his successor, Bill Clinton, agreed to see Rushdie in the White House, but only if no photographs were taken. Bookstores refused to sell the novel.
A second chapter in this depressing narrative was the Dutch government’s harassment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali after she had offended Muslims by criticizing their treatment of women. But the next eruption to attract widespread American attention was the episode of the Danish cartoons in 2006. Muslims upset with how Muhammad was being portrayed—or that he was being portrayed at all!—demonstrated or rioted in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere. At least 200 people died. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, said that while he respected the right of freedom of speech, “freedom of speech is never absolute.” The second Bush administration’s position on the cartoons was: “We find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find these images offensive.”