Topic: NewsBusters
In an Aug. 17 NewsBusters post, Lachlan Markay takes offense at the idea forwarded in a Time magazine article that the area surrounding Ground Zero isn't exactly "hallowed ground" because it contains, among other things, a strip club:
Gee, could it have anything to do with the fact that pole dancers didn't fly planes into the twin towers? For some, the right to build a mosque and the move's moral implications are two distinct issues, and $10 lap dances have exactly nothing to do with either.
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Surely Gray forgot to add that this particular "private house of worship" is devoted to the same religion in whose name those 2,700 Americans were killed, built where landing gear from one of the planes that hit the towers fell, scheduled to be opened on September 11 of next year, and named after the Islamic Caliphate who conquered much of Medieval (Christian) Spain.
I say he must have forgotten to add those details since they would accurately frame the argument against the Ground Zero mosque, and surely he was not trying to intentionally distort that argument.
Of course if he were, he would also have to explain why strip clubs have any bearing whatsoever on the sanctity of an historic or prestigious location. There are three strip clubs within a few blocks of the White House. Is Gray suggesting that the White House is not a sacred location?
Of course, nobody is claiming that the area "within a few blocks of the White House" is sacred ground. And Markay misses the point -- that the proposed Islamic center location is obviously not "hallowed ground" because a similar distance away is a strip club that nobody is declaring to be similar "hallowed ground."
