Out of respect for the families?

It’s not just hate-mongers like Newt Gingrich versus champions of constitutional liberties like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when it comes to the discussion of building that mosque in lower Manhattan. There’s a nuanced "middle" position that seems to typically employ the phrase "out of respect for the families."

This phrase is often used in a sentence like, "of course, the Muslims have the right to put this mosque anywhere they want but out of respect for the families, they ought to move it father away from Ground Zero."

It allows the speaker to sound like they have a vague grasp of the liberties championed by America’s founding fathers while, at the same time, they can pander to and even stir up the inflamed emotions that 9/11 still evokes…and no doubt will for many years to come. And as is true in any such veil for hypocrisy, the phrase is itself is a pretty pernicious concoction.

First of all, it suggests that the families of 9/11 victims uniformly, as a group, associate the attacks that robbed them of their loved ones not with a small, fringe group of radicalized terrorists but with a religion those terrorists debased and whose teachings they ignored. This doesn’t respect but impugns them.

Of course, as has been widely reported, the families of 9/11 victims are not a monolithic group and so to be accurate, the phrase that should be used is "out of respect for some of the families…" But even in that instance, this phrase suggests that it is "respectful" to set aside principles and the law and embrace intolerance and ignorance simply because the wounds associated with a grievous crime are still open.

How can it be respectful to suggest that these families operate to a lower standard than the rest of American society? Or whether some do or not, how can it be respectful to treat them as they do? 

This entire discussion has also, in fact, become disrespectful of the victims themselves. It implies that they had neither the hearts nor the understanding to discern between a few gutter criminals and the Islamic values the terrorists callously ignored, perverted and violated with their actions.  It suggests that the appropriate way to honor their memory is with anger and the most indiscriminate sort of discrimination.

Even more grotesquely disrespectful of the victims of 9/11 however are the words of those who seek to capitalize on a national tragedy to advance their own narrow, personal political interests. The growing torrent of such words has been truly disgraceful. It is the worst sort of a demagoguery whether it comes from those spewing vile words like Gingrich or those who dress their cravenness up and seek to sound rational but pander with an "I love religious freedom but build it somewhere else" stance like Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid. The president said the right thing and deserves great credit for that. He did what presidents should do, displaying moral leadership and he should not back down.

There are, of course, other sane and reasonable voices on this. Interestingly, the closer you get to Ground Zero the more of them you find. Mayor Bloomberg has been excellent, a new and improved version of America’s Mayor. New Jersey’s rising star Governor Chris Christie has also been typically thoughtful and constructive in his recommendation that his party not seek to capitalize on the unrest this issue foments. And yesterday as I walked around Ground Zero and talked to a variety of people in the neighborhood, I got the strong sense that for most New Yorkers, it was a non-issue. The city is so diverse, so dense, so rich with a variety of cultures that such a mosque would largely blend right in and for the vast majority of people who walked by it every day, be invisible. Were that ultimately to happen, as it should, were a mosque near ground zero to eventually be seen as just another thread in the rich tapestry of New York … and in fact, one that finally helped to reweave a tear in this city’s fabric…there could hardly be a greater show of respect for the victims of 9/11 or their families.