TWO FALLACIES DISPROVED

#1: Right-wingers are cool with the Park51 project, they just don't like the location. #2: New-era right-wingers don't really care all that much about religion.

Disproved:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson....

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law....

Earlier this summer opponents criticized the planned mosque at hearings held by the Rutherford County Commission, as supporters held prayer vigils.

At one such prayer vigil, WTVF reported opponents speaking out against construction.

"No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don't want it. I don't want them here," Evy Summers said to WTVF. "Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity."

The only people who ever believed those fallacies, of course, are idiots, naifs, and mainstream journalists. (But I repeat myself.)

And I wonder how many "Vote for Jesus" shirts were worn at Lincoln Memorial: The Beckening this weekend.

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Zandar:

Is it going to take actual mosque burnings and possible deaths before America realizes this is wrong?

I think it would take more than that. Not even a mosque burning or two would shock America's conscience (they'd be called isolated incidents). Not even a murder or two. There'd have to be a murder of children, a la Birmingham, or a grotesque lynching, a la James Byrd or Matthew Shepard, before America woke up. And let's hope it doesn't come to that.