Masking the real issue with the mosque

It’s time for us to admit it: Americans, at least a lot of us, simply don’t
like Muslims very much.

A lot has been made of the recent CNN survey about that proposed mosque at
the 9/11 site. Politicians, particularly those on the right, have jumped
all over the 68 percent negative response when participants were asked whether
they favored or opposed constructing that particular Islamic Center. But a new
one gives the more complete picture.

Time magazine’s brand-new poll gets to a
much more relevant fundamental issue when it shows a full 43 percent
disapproval of Islam — not the proposed New York mosque, but the religion
itself.

The demagogues know that full well. But they’ve gotten a free pass. They’ve
been allowed to tiptoe around our ugly true feelings and declare they are
for religious diversity and all that good stuff, just against the mosque on
that particular site, “sacred ground” that it is. 

That is a subterfuge, and they know it. Saddest of all, they’ve been able to
terrify some candidates who are otherwise more measured but are now showing
just how craven someone can get when he’s running for his political life, say
in Nevada.

By the way, the Time poll does not
reflect a spike resulting from the current controversy. Gallup last January got
an identical result: Forty-three percent acknowledged “a little
prejudice” against Muslims.

Those are the ones who admitted their feelings openly. Surveys like this are
incomplete because so many prefer to camouflage their true feelings, out of
embarrassment or a lack of self-awareness. Even so, 31 percent acknowledged
their view of Islam in its entirety was “not favorable at all.”

Back in 2006, still another poll listed 38 percent saying they would never vote
for a Muslim president. We’ve all seen the fruits of that one, with many of
President Obama’s opponents getting good traction with their claim he’s really
a Muslim by birth and upbringing. And a new Pew poll shows that one in five
believes that, thanks to incessant continuous use of the “Big Lie”
tactic by the blogger blatherers, toxic talk radio hosts, Fox fantasy peddlers
and so many others on the wrong-headed right.

Whatever their scruples, or lack thereof, it is an accusation, a pejorative
perceived as one — so much so that Mr. Obama’s supporters have used up a lot of
energy trying to deny it.

At the very least, most Americans don’t really comprehend very much about the
religion, even though the best guess is that slightly under 3 million Muslims
live in the United States. And when we don’t understand something, we become
all too receptive to those exploiters who will demonize it.

Even Ed Gillespie and Grover Norquist, as hard-nosed partisans as you’ll find,
are quoted as worrying their fellow Republicans might be overplaying their
hands. They may be correct, but perhaps not, if political advantage is the name
of the game. Tragically, it probably is.

As for the contention that the resistance is not based on aversion to Islam but
on the “insult,” claimed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah
Palin, over building at that particular site, that ignores similar uproars at
locations around the country. It seems that each time a new proposal is
discussed, the locals get a bad case of the NIMBYs, as in “Not in my backyard!”

And back to the New York site: President Obama’s comments that showed sympathy
to the idea drew such condemnation, mainly from his adversaries, that he
furiously backpedaled less than a day later. This is a man who has been trying
very hard to repair relations between this nation and Muslim countries.

He probably needs to begin here. Until then, his words in that world will be
regarded as ludicrous by those who see the West as enemy territory, populated by
small-minded religious bigots.

It’s just what the fundamentalist crazies need to justify their violent
extremism. We need to do better and open our hearts. And not just for tactical
reasons and foreign policy, but because it’s right.

Visit Mr. Franken’s website at www.bobfranken.tv.