Religious Freedom

Can you believe how our leaders have politicized what I really thought was a constitutional right. Our history tells us that religious freedom was extremely important to our founding fathers. It was sort of a non-negotiable when the good old US of A was struggling for liberation from those oppressive Brits wasn't it. How times change. Today, the prevailing train of thought seems to be...you are free to practice whatever religion you want as long as my religion is ok with it. The tragedy of September 11 was not an attack on the U.S. by Islam any more than Timothy McVeih's act in Oklahoma was a Christian attack on the U.S. OK I know that many believe that McVeih was a self proclaimed atheist, but he did have ties to a religious doctrine known as the Christian Identity. Some scholars make the point that if McVeih was a Christian he could not have carried out such a horrific act. I would counter that if the 9-11 hijackers had been truly devoted Muslims, they could not have carried out the attacks that they perpetrated. Sorry I guess I am getting a little off track. As Americans we are quick to point to our history of tolerance and freedom and yet we want to make the location of a place of worship into a political issue. Muslims have been worshiping in Manhattan for decades. I should not matter the location of the place of worship. Are we going to restrict Islamic service members from practicing their religion at the Pentagon chapel?

As a final comment I will remind you that in June of 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty (nine hours after identifying it as a U.S. Navy vessel) in International waters killing 34 American Sailors. Instead of national outrage the result was national coverup with many documents related to the event still classified. Do we control the location of synagogs near Naval facilities? No we don't.