The Park51 Community Center has been in the spotlight now and most of the dialogue about it, has been pure and unadulterated fear mongering. I know, nothing really out of the ordinary, for the far right conservatives. Where are the moderate and real conservative voices on this one? I haven’t followed this discourse too closely, other than to note how ludicrous it seemed to be. Everything about this screams conservative support. Private property, Religious Freedom, right? That would be the case, if the group trying to open the community center was Christian, but since it is a Muslim effort, there seems to be a crisis here.
The linked blog has photos of what other types of establishments are all within the same distance from Ground Zero. It is interesting, given all the rhetoric about the area being “hallowed ground.” Yes, it is, but…. what does that mean? In this case, it means, that as much work as the Obama Administration has done to counter the idea that America is at war with the Muslim world, there are those who are working equally or harder to suggest otherwise. For some, real Americans still hate and mistrust muslims.
For me, the rhetoric reminds me of the language used surrounding Marriage Equality. For example, the sanctity of marriage being defended by Maggie Gallagher who has been married three times. Both of these issues point a spotlight on the way the radical religious right is trying to maintain their stronghold on the American political system. I say, maintaining, after reading Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family,” a read well worth your time. But I think there is another dimension at play too, where nationalist sentiments are being manipulated. So, is this just another tactic of the Christian Right, or is the Cristian Right’s involvement simply a system of a broader national identity crisis, where the Christian Right is jockeying for more control?
I think this is one of the reasons the fight for Gay Rights is moving slower than we want. It isn’t only about tradition and religious bigotry. It is about an entire reframing of what “we” (in the most general sense) understand ourselves to be as Americans, and the hypersensitivity to protecting the status quo. If, the status quo can be maintained, then there is no need to think about what the status quo means or if it still works for the whole.
Another place we are seeing this play out is the anti-immegrant battle begun in Arizona. Here, too, the real issue isn’t border safety, but rather an attempt to protect some “idea” about what America means. The border is no less less secure now than it has been, and in fact it s more secure than it had been, even before the draconian Arizona law.
All of these are opportunities by the defenders of the status quo to other a stereotyped group of individuals so that they are isolated and villainized.  Villains are scary, right? And when the villains are scary  and isolated, the status quo is more powerful. But if all of the othered groups recognize how they are being treated alike, and all of the groups work together, the status quo can be changed.