Charlie Brooker's excellent take on the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque controversy in New York City in today's Guardian – well worth reading, if you are one of the few people on the planet not to have read it yet – underestimates the nature of the opposition:
New York being a densely populated city, there are lots of other buildings and businesses within two blocks of Ground Zero, including a McDonald's and a Burger King, neither of which has yet been accused of serving milkshakes and fries on hallowed ground. Regardless, for the opponents of Cordoba House, two blocks is too close, period. Frustratingly, they haven't produced a map pinpointing precisely how close is OK.
The answer, in too many cases, appears to be: nowhere within the United States. Take this article from today's Washington Post, about opposition to a new mosque being built in a town named Murfreesboro in Tennessee:
For more than 30 years, the Muslim community in this Nashville suburb has worshipped quietly in a variety of makeshift spaces – a one-bedroom apartment, an office behind a Lube Express – attracting little notice even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
But when the community's leaders proposed a 52,900-square-foot Islamic center with a school and a swimming pool this year, the vehement backlash from their neighbors caught them by surprise. Opponents crowded county meetings and held a noisy protest in the town square that drew hundreds, some carrying signs such as "Keep Tennessee Terror Free."
Murfreesboro, the Washington Post feels compelled to point out, "is hundreds of miles from New York City and the national furor about whether an Islamic community center should be built near Ground Zero." It's 750 miles in fact. But that still seems to be too close.
