Wall Street Journal
August 26, 2010
Debates across America over Islamic centers and mosques won't soon be resolved. But this summer's hysteria is giving the upper hand to one nefarious force: the culture of offense.
Election-year politics, ratings-hungry media and deep personal fear foment raw emotion. In such an environment, "I'm offended" takes on the stature of a substantive argument. Too many Americans are mistaking feeling for thinking.
That's true not just among antimosque crusaders, but also among warriors for tolerance. Consider Bob, who feels so offended by antimosque activists in his state of Tennessee that these feelings alone drive him to support more mosques—without prior thought to what, exactly, he's supporting. "I found local citizens to be intolerant and un-American," Bob tells me over email. "So as a gesture of tolerance and Americanism, I donated to the mosque building fund."
Before pledging a penny, Bob should have asked the imam: "Where will the men's side of this mosque be?" It's a discreet way of discerning whether the project will replicate segregation, and thus whether the mosque will wind up bolstering the intolerant behavior that Bob can't abide.
More
