RUSH: Okay back to the phones. Mihiar in Wichita, Kansas. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Hello. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: I am an American Muslim and I oppose building a mosque around the Ground Zero area.
RUSH: Did I pronounce your name correctly? I don’t want to mispronounce it.
CALLER: Yes, you did.
RUSH: Thank you very much. Why do you oppose it?
CALLER: Well, it’s common sense. It’s a sensitivity issue. I don’t think it has anything to do with constitutional rights of Muslims to build mosques anywhere in America. I think we have to be sensitive to our fellow Americans, and that’s just common sense to me.
RUSH: It was in the first hour of the program today I read an excerpt in an interview from a man. I forget his title but he was a ranking executive at Al-Arabiya TV, he basically said the same thing. He said most Muslims don’t really want it there; they know the problems it’s going to cause. It’s a commercial area; it’s not residential. There aren’t a whole lot of Muslims that live there in the first place. It implied that there’s a battle within Islam over Al-Qaeda bastardizing a religion and that this is going to give all of Islam a bad name if this thing gets built there.
CALLER: Exactly. This is opening a can of worms, and we don’t need that. We are loyal American citizens. And actually our faith — our Islam, our religion — requires us to repel evil with good and to do something that is good. I actually made a video clip on YouTube suggesting another idea for using that property, and whether to build a charitable institution to cater to the needs of people in that area, or actually to do something more drastic than that, and that is to rebuild the towers and dedicate them to the victims of 9/11.
RUSH: Interesting. I think we’re going to build one tower back.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: They wanted to call it the World Trade Center but people opposed that. They’re going to call it the Freedom Tower now, I think.
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: Well, are you representative of a majority of thinking in your circle?
CALLER: I hope. I hope I am. I don’t know. I hope I am because I think Muslims are also reacting to this issue emotionally, as Americans who are opposing the mosque also are reacting emotionally. And if American Muslims would take some time to think about the repercussions of building a mosque in that area, they would probably be also opposing to that.
RUSH: Mihiar, thank you very much. That’s interesting. I’ll tell you something. That is an excellent point. We’re always concerned about anti-Muslim backlash. Remember the Times Square bomber? Bloomberg said (paraphrased), ‘Oh, no, it was obviously somebody that didn’t like Obama’s health care.’ After the Fort Hood shooter, General Casey comes out and says, ‘I’m going to make sure that we don’t have an anti-Muslim backlash,’ and yet here they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero, and they’re not concerned about anti-Muslim backlash, are they? That is an excellent point out there. Why aren’t we worried about it in this case when in virtually every other case our leaders are in panic over anti-Muslim reaction? Think about that. Thank you, Mihiar, for the call.
RUSH: Simon in Spokane, Washington, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, thank you very much for taking my call. It’s truly an honor. Correct me if I’m wrong, but how I see the mosque is if you’re in favor of this mosque or anything else Muslim, then really you’re in favor of the genital mutilation of teenage women and the summary execution of women. Why should we give freedom to those who don’t just practice acts of worship, but practice atrocious acts of violence?
RUSH: Well, some people would agree with you that that is in the basic teachings of Islam, the discrimination of women and so forth, and why would you want that kind of intolerance in your neighborhood. That’s basically your question?
CALLER: Yes. Yeah.
RUSH: So if you have that view then you do have to ask yourself: Why in the world are people for it? Which is my point all along: Why are the people who are for this so hell-bent in favor of it?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: All right. Simon, thanks much. Mike in New Gloucester, Maine, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yes. Good afternoon, Rush. Nice to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, listen, I gotta… Hear me out on this, because your heart’s in the right place, but I don’t think you’re thinking it all the way through. I have a family of seven brothers. We love this country. We’ve all been in the military, but the youngest spoiled brat — I mean my youngest brother — and we would do anything to defend this country and what it was founded on. But here’s the problem with the mosque: I’m a born-again Christian, and I believe in keeping the Sabbath day. Now, what happens if the Vatican or some other government all of a sudden turns around and says, ‘You know something? We ought to keep Sunday holy and let’s get rid of Sabbath-keeping churches.’ I mean, you’ve gotta be careful with what it is you’re saying we should or we shouldn’t do because the mosque has a right. Even though I absolutely agree with you, they are doing this to get up underneath our collars, but that’s not where we go. We should go to the government and get on their case to get off of our case and allow us to build our crosses and our churches, pray in school or pray whatever how we want to and leave us alone. But never, ever forget that the Constitution was built on the very freedom to worship how we wish.
RUSH: Yeah, but in this case nobody is preventing Muslims from worshiping, and nobody is altering the Sabbath or anything about Islam. There are a hundred mosques throughout New York City, and if this one doesn’t get built, it doesn’t mean that Muslims are being prohibited from worshiping as they choose.
CALLER: Well, it shouldn’t be up to us to try to —
RUSH: By the way, we can’t put a cross wherever we want.
CALLER: Well, we ought to be able to. That’s the problem.
RUSH: Well, we can’t.
CALLER: We should go after the government. We need to get the government to get off our case. Never mind trying to stop the mosque. We should stop the government from trying to stop us from building churches.
RUSH: Wait a minute. The government isn’t doing anything to stop this.
CALLER: Well, there are people playing some games in New York to see if they can find some loopholes to stop them.
RUSH: No, they’re trying to use public opinion pressure here to cause the sensitivity to take the mosque location someplace else. There’s no long arm of government involved here. The only long arm of government that’s involved is saying, ‘Build it there.’
CALLER: Well, I’ll tell you what, Rush. We love you. We love listening to you. Most of the time we are absolutely behind you. I just… I’m saying, ‘Tread carefully because what we set up now may come to bite us whether you’re a Baptist, a Lutheran, a this or that or what have ya.’
RUSH: Look —
CALLER: It may turn around and bite us in the butt.
RUSH: I understand your theory, but the circumstances of this mosque are not analogous. You talk about, ‘If the Vatican came out and changed the Sabbath.’ Nothing of the kind is happening here. If this mosque does not get built there’s not one change occurring in Islam. Not one. We have ordinances, laws and everything that say where things can and can’t be built. Homes, you name it. There’s nothing unique about this. The harm would come with this thing going up. That’s the thing that people have got to understand.