It’s hard to see Sen. Orrin Hatch’s comments regarding the “Ground Zero Mosque” as anything other than a slap right across Mitt Romney’s devastatingly handsome face.
Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, said mosque proponents “have every right” to carry out their plans in New York, just as Mormons had a right to build their temple, despite neighborhood opposition…. “I remember when the Belmont, Mass., temple was going up … the local people got up in arms,” he said. “They didn’t want a Mormon church there to begin with. They couldn’t stop that, but then they tried to stop the steeple with the angel Moroni.”
Mitt Romney, as you may recall, lived in Belmont not too long ago. He was a major force behind the building of that temple, despite stiff local opposition that took the matter to the Supreme Judicial Court. But Romney is against the Ground Zero Mosque. According to the awesome Eric Fehrnstrom, speaking on Romney’s behalf:
“The wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda compel rejection of this site.”
Now, do you think it’s a coincidence that Hatch happened to pick the controversy in Belmont to illustrate his point? I don’t. There’s local opposition to new religious structures generally, and new Mormon temples in particular, all the time. He could have chosen any of them (I believe the controversy in Phoenix is still ongoing). But Hatch picked the controversy in Belmont, long Mitt Romney’s home town, as his example for how local opposition should not win out over religious freedom.
Once, Romney had a different view of the importance of letting religious groups build places of worship. Let’s check in with the wayback machine (HT kos diarist).
One particularly blunt affront has left Romney still visibly enraged months after it occurred. His jaw clenches as he tells how he was approached by a local woman after a public meeting between church members and their critics. “One lady, who I’m sure considers herself quite tolerant, came over to me and wanted to know why we just didn’t go on back to Utah and build our temple out there,” he recalls.
Basically, the lady was saying, “you can build your temple. Just build it somewhere else.” Of course, Romney, who I’m sure considers himself quite tolerant, is saying exactly that about the mosque.
Kudos to Hatch.
You would think by now that Orrin would know better than think Romney will maintain a position that he thinks would hurt his chances in the primary. He’s a man of no conviction.
I would hope that anyone opposed to the Cordoba House would remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that an angry mob burned down a Catholic convent in Charlestown and that a political party arose around the idea that Catholics were beholden to the Pope and that they wanted to subjugate good Americans to the rule of the Pope.
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p>There is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9
You’d think a Mormon would be more sensitive to a persecuted religion under attack. They were driven out of Missouri, their founder was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob, and they were forced to flee to the desert to escape the persecution and violence.
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p>Mitt’s just another rich geeky kid that nobody really likes. No matter how hard he tries, the cool kids (the GOP right wing fundamentalists in this case) aren’t gonna be his friends. He can suck up all he wants. They’ll just keep stealing his lunch money.
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p>I think he’s so insecure and desperate to outdo his father that he will say and do anything, no matter how desperate and insecure he looks and sounds.
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p>Maybe he can claim he’s brainwashed.
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p>
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p>Temple of the First Light
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p>Built to endure, from granite born,
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p>spire touched by gold from the dawn;
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p>Glowing reflection, with dawnlight blending
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p>Shining
Pure as hope
From Belmont to the sea.
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p>Clothed by loving hands, with flowers
girded by earth with sentinel trees;
blessing with beauty
man and woman
as they marry;
Encircling the grieving
within the arms of Heaven.
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p>Seen from sea
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p>And the sea, seeing,
Inviting all to walk in beauty
reminding all of numinous glory;
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p>A call to prayer
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p>Supplications
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p>Framed by clouds.
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p>cDeborah Sirotkin Butler, 1996
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p>Just another shadow from the Wayback Machine. The reference to “the first light” has to do with Dawn touching our Eastern Shores before Dawn touches the temples in the West. As to why I attend neither the Temple nor the Latter Day Saint Church these days – that is another story for another time. Let’s just say, though, that I don’t change my convictions to be in fashion.
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It is protected by Federal statute – the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) which SPECIFICALLY by statute outlaws using ‘zoning and landmarking’ as a means of preventing construction of a religious property. As you may know, the ‘vote’ that set off the furor was by the NYC Historic Landmarks Commission denying landmark status – and they HAD to vote to deny per the Federal statute!
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p>The law was written by…Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). And looking at the timing, Belmont may have been on his mind at the time.
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p>It is destructive and divisive to frame this as a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment is not absolute – fire in a crowded theatre, etc. But this statute SPECIFICALLY PROTECTS this project from exactly the strategy that was being used to prevent the project.
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p>Full Disclosure – I DO think Cordoba House should accept the help of Gov. Patterson and relocate as a matter of good will and community.
So how does Congress derive its authority to enforce the RLUIPA? That act was passed to correct Constitutional issues with an earlier act; ultimately I would suspect that any Supreme Court case relative to that act would figure that Congress would derive that authority from a Fourteenth Amendment application of the First Amendment. Unless you can argue Commerce Clause.
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p>And as to your last point, I also believe that it would have been better had Cordoba House located elsewhere- away from our National Ground Zero Shrine and the abutting adult entertainment establishments nearby. However, at this point, Cordoba House has the legal and moral right to do what they want; to acquiesce to politeness or poltical correctness at this point would be to give in to the demands of a bully. Or a terrorist.
They only write them. Overall, this strikes me as similar to ‘restricted covenants’.
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p>BTW – an argument is out there to use Kelo to seize the land using the argument that since eleemosynary and religious property enjoy a tax exemption, ANY other use would promote the economic benefit of the community (!) and that NYC should seize the property.
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p>I think that RLUIPA would PROTECT Cordoba in this instance, but that a non-profit (ANY non-profit) would be eligible for seizure. So the ‘YMCA’ argument could backfire…
…I think means legislate specific penalties for violating more general laws, especially constitutional provisions. For example several constitutional amendments conclude with the line, “Congress shall have the authority to ENFORCE this article by appropriate legislation.”
Statutes are often used to codify the mechanisms of implementing constitutional rights. Happens all the time, perhaps because not every government official is going to be a constitutional scholar.
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p>RFRA, along with a raft of amendments to various things done at the same time, is another statute that attempts to protect the right to religious practice.
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p>These statutes don’t actually change anything about the underlying right, of course.
Of course, the major difference between Hatch and Romney is that the latter is seeking the presidential nomination of a party with a strong penchant for Islamophobia. In any case, good for Hatch here.
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p>By the way, I’m not sure using any tense of the verb “to have” makes any sense alongside a discussion of Romney’s “views.” This suggests that Romney actually possesses a viewpoint — which, as any reasonable person should be able to see, fails to offer an accurate description of the man.