from the washington post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...rss=rss_nation
Religious tolerance, then and now
Debating the Ground Zero mosque on the streets of D.C.
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
"To bigotry no sanction."
-- George Washington
"Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate."
-- Sarah Palin
Two hundred twenty years ago today, the Jews of Newport, R.I., wrote a proclamation for President George Washington on his visit to their synagogue the next day.
"Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens," the Jews wrote to their famous visitor, we now "behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People . . . generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great governmental Machine."
Washington's reply the next day, a simple letter titled "To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport," set a standard for religious tolerance that guided the nation through two centuries. Here is that message in its entirety -- along with some alternative thoughts on the topic occasioned by the proposed mosque near Ground Zero:
this point is ridiculous:
"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over. . . . Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington."
-- Newt Gingrich
so, newt, we are to act, base our laws, change our beliefs, because of saudi arabia? there is a reason so many want to come here, live here-it's because of our freedoms that aren't available elsewhere. again, good people do not change how they are, act, believe, based on bad actions of others. how can we try to prevail upon saudi arabia to grant freedoms, if we do not? we set examples, we don't follow others bad ones. standing up for an unpopular minority and their rights isn't an indication of weakness, but of strength and a belief in our ideals.