The Mosque and Timothy McVeigh

As far as that Ground Zero mosque is concerned, my print column is up.

On an earlier post, a reader, Paul L., asks this question.

I understand both sides of this issue. Here is my question: I believe that the Oklahoma City Federal Bldg. has been declared "a sacred" site and a monument park established. Since, McVeigh was a fundamentalist Christian would it be insensitive to build a Church across the street from the site?

Now, I don't know what led Paul to believe that Timothy McVeigh was a fundamentalist Christian because he wasn't. He was a lapsed Catholic, who after his arrest, claimed "Science is my religion."

But, it is still an interesting question to consider.

Suppose McVeigh had been a fundamentalist Christian and some extremist Christian group, like, for instance, the Westboro Baptist Church, bought a piece of property next door to Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum and wanted to name it the Timothy McVeigh Church of the Holy Redeemer.

It is hard to imagine there wouldn't be something of a controversy about that. It is even harder to imagine that liberal politicians would come out in favor of Westboro Baptist's right to build such an offense so close to a place where so many innocent people were killed. More likely they would be expressing the same sort of outrage many Amnerians are feeling about the Ground Zero mosque.

I would still acknowledge Westboro Baptist's right to build its church. But I would suggest that whatever public pressure could be brought to bear to prevent that church from being built would not only be appropriate, it would be a duty and a public service to civilized people everywhere.