Pointing Fingers

Yes, It Is Time For That Conversation

Once again, here we are, scratching our heads as our brains prepare us for a media onslaught of round-the-clock coverage of yet another mass shooting by another deranged gunman who, no matter how you slice it, shouldn’t have had access to the kind weaponry that appears to have been used by 20-year old Adam Lanza to shoot dead 20 small children and six adults, including his mother, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

If you’re wondering who is responsible for this tragedy, look in the mirror. And then demand a fucking conversation about gun control. And mental health care. And poverty. And priorities. And how these things are intertwined in this ugly equation.

If you accept the bullshit that now isn’t the time to discuss it, you are the problem. Get off your ass and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

When tragedy strikes a community, our desire to make sense of it as human beings, is complex, but unfortunately, our experience, garnered from an increasing number of mass-killing spree incidents has taught us a thing ot two.

Any lie ever uttered from the mouth of a politician is sure to be followed by a justification involving their altruistic desire to “protect the children.”

Thankfully not all of us are able to fully grasp the unspeakable grief the families of these dead children are going through, and will live with for the rest of their lives.

Thankfully not all of us have to keep our emotions in check to the degree the parents of these children, who witnessed or heard the mayhem unfold, must. To have to figure out how to provide answers to questions none of us really understand, and be careful to avoid unconsciously transferring their anxiety.

There are those who believe, with good intention, that speaking out right now is insensitive. That calling out our culpability and complacency when it comes to gun violence is “pushing an agenda,” or taking advantage of the tragedy.

Perhaps if you’re Kmart – tweeting prayers and #Fab15Toys.

But in fact, now is the time to ask hard questions. If pushing our own agendas is about reducing gun violence and senseless killings, the best thing we can do to honor the memory of those innocent victims is to do everything in our power to keep it from happening again.

The 20 (so far) children killed in Connecticut this morning were between the ages of 5 – 10 years old. It may be difficult for them to understand the connections between mental health, gun violence, and poverty, but let’s not pretend, to ourselves, that there isn’t one.

For once, let’s explore ways to protect our children with the same ferocity anti-choice politicians do fetuses. Let’s try regulating guns with the same fervor conservatives do women’s bodies.

On a personal level, I am angry and feel responsible for my relative complacency.

But I also recall that Americans tend to have very short memories, and I don’t think I am even capable of keeping quiet as those who are in a position to act continue to fail. Offering prayers and platitudes and bullshit.

“We need moms and dads helping raise kids,” said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in response to a question from an audience member about gun control that not one of the media moderators deemed important enough to address, suggesting, without a shred of evidence that children born out of wedlock were more likely to resort to gun violence. Whilst agreeing to sign a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. And while he may be licking his wounds in Disneyland, his position is alive and well and thriving in Republicanland.

I fully support giving the families of these victims the space and privacy to grieve as they see fit, outside the glare of the media, who have already sickened me to the stomach by interviewing an repeatedly airing interviews with kids still so traumatized they are barely capable of speaking between their gasps.

But I can mourn and respect the families and act at the same time.

For once, let’s explore ways to protect our children with the same ferocity we do fetuses. Let’s try regulating guns with the same fervor we do women’s bodies. Or people from marrying the ones they love.

For me this isn’t about pushing an agenda. It’s simply about saying enough is enough.

And doing something about it. For real. Right now.

This is the time for this conversation.

The following article was published on The New Civil Rights Movement website on December 14, 2012. 

Chick-Fil-A: Munching On Bigotry And Hate With A Side Of Homophobia

Just a few weeks ago, Chick-Fil-A was just another fast food joint, and certainly not one at the center of the marriage equality debate. Sure, activists in the know were well aware of the Christian identified company’s homophobic tendencies as their foundation pumped serious coinage into the coffers of some of the more notoriously and virulently anti-gay entities hell-bent on making people unhappy and actively seeking to deny them their rights (if not torture, bully them or drive them to suicide).

After being confronted about the ramifications of his company’ support for bigotry under the guise of traditional marriage, the company’s president, Dan Cathy — one of those deluded men who genuinely believes his heterosexual propensity for pussy makes him superior somehow, qualifying him to cherry-pick portions of the bible that nourish his hate and bigotry – rather than distance his company from his personally held hatred, declared Chick-Fil-A “guilty as charged.”

The New Civil Rights Movement editor, David Badash, who has been covering the increasingly polarizing issue from the outset, observes the mixed results as “big city mayors from San Francisco to Boston to Chicago to New York have all weighed in on banning Chick-Fil-A from their cities.”

And we can debate whether it’s appropriate for mayors or politicians to get involved, just like we did when politicians decided that despite the American constitution, it was okay to violate the First Amendment rights of Muslim Americans from building a community center in downtown Manhattan because it might irrationally upset people. There’s no harm in them expressing their disgust. Denying Chick-Fil-A permits to do business in the absence of demonstrably prejudicial hiring practices or conduct, however, is an overreaction, and frankly, a big mistake.

Some (my own friends included), flummoxed by the boycott, have been asking questions such as: “Can I eat there without supporting their position?…. like you eating a pork chop doesn’t affect me as a Jew ….and does not make you anti-Semitic.”

You can’t separate the two. Eating a pork chop doesn’t affect anyone other than the eater and the pig (unless you bought the pork chop at Chick-Fil-A).

Christian beliefs — not all, but particularly those selectively applied as relating to sexual orientation, (since adultery and children born out of wedlock or eating shellfish are somehow more forgivable, despite the Bible spelling out equally dire consequences) — are about specifically and deliberately denying rights to a group of people for who they are.

Most believe that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice, and despite it being a legitimate social choice, let’s go with that for now – (think carefully — do you remember choosing to be straight?)

Eating at Chick-Fil-A — actively giving money to and supporting a company that in turn gives significant sums of money to groups that perpetrate ugly and unconscionable acts (like electrocute children showing signs of gender non-conformity, or spread vile and baseless rumors that are so hurtful and damaging to young people, the suicide rate among gay and lesbian teens is significantly higher than those of their straight counterparts), makes you complicit in that, even if that’s not how you feel or what you believe.

Imagine if instead of gay people, Chick-Fil-A decided to give money to organizations that sought to demonize Hispanics and deny them the same rights that everyone else enjoys on simply the way they were born.

Or if their foundation was giving money to anti-Semitic organizations that exported hatred in the form of books and programs to countries like Syria or Saudi Arabia, where they were used to enact legislation that criminalized Judaism and punished those even supporting Jews to long hard prison sentences and the death penalty. Because that’s exactly what the organizations that Chick-Fil-A is actively financing are doing.

So while the President of Chick-Fil-A is entitled to his personal beliefs, as ugly, judgmental and dangerous as they may be, and when confronted about the accusations — in the name of his company — deemed the company “guilty as charged,” he made a choice, and threw down a gauntlet.

And in so doing, he changed the conversation and dynamic from being about whether he is entitled to his own personal beliefs, to actively directing profits from his company to destroy and deny basic rights to a whole group of people, who like everyone else in the country, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, many of whom in the service of their country, and protecting those ideals, are willing to put their lives on the line to ensure them.

And so even if you’re straight and love Chick-Fil-A, you have a choice, and ultimately it requires making a sacrifice. You can’t pretend that spending money there doesn’t support the dangerous organizations that the company actively funds and sponsors.

There’s no way to spin this other than to acknowledge that you’re choosing to support a hateful and dangerous agenda in every bite of a Chicken-Fil-A meal you choose to eat.

And unlike the sexual orientation of the millions Dan Cathy despises and deems himself superior to, the choice is yours.

(This piece was originally published on The New Civil Rights Movement. For comprehensive reporting and opinion on the Chick-Fil-A branding debacle, click here.)

Disgrace for the Cure

We want to apologize for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives. -- Susan B. Komen Foundation

Political kowtowing and lack of moral courage do nothing to advance women's health.

Nancy G. Brinker, the founder and chief executive of the Susan B. Komen Foundation, acknowledged the decision had been “deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends.”

After a storm of criticism followed the organization's obviously political move to defund Planned Parenthood, they backtracked.

But the damage was done, exposing the leadership for who they really are. With Nacy Brinker at the helm and Karen Handel anywhere close, the stink remains.

And the result of this irreperably damaging move on their brand?

 

Loss of trust on the left and disppointment on the right. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

The Sexual Confusion of TN Senator Stacey Campfield

Spreading misinformation, even if you are severely ignorant, and even if you're from Tennessee, isn't okay -- especially if you're a public official.

Stacey Campfield, the same State senator from Tennessee sponsored a bill to force women to look at fetal ultrasound images before having an abortion. His existence may be the only legitimate thing support his claim. Had his mother seen so much of a cell of his, she surely would have aborted immediately.

"In the 60's my grandfather sat at the lunch counters with the blacks in Knoxville to help break up the segregation of the races," he claims. Like Arizona governor Jan Brewer's father died fighting the Nazis. Her father, Wilford Drinkwine, died from lung disease in California, ten years after World War II had ended.

But what is Stacey's excuse for such a special brand of asshole meets stupid?

Already there is a "Recall Stacey Campfield" page on Facebook (although Tennessee law forbids recalls, just as they do using the word "gay". Campfield, who audaciously compares himself to Jesus Christ and the civil rights activists of the 60s, authored a bill outlawing mentioning sexuality in schools, except for heterosexuality and marriage. The "Don't Say Gay" bill passed by a 6-3 vote.

Now Martha Boggs, owner of Bistro at the Bijou in Knoxville, is being hailed as a hero after last Sunday she refused to serve the senator and his friends. She claimed it was the elevation of his remarks from stupid to dangerous that motivated her.

We don't, or shouldn't, discriminate against those with brain disease or other debilitating, disabling mental disorders that preclude them from performing certain tasks, but we don't allow them to perform brain surgery or pilot planes either.

Nor should ignorant bigots be given a platform to spread dangerous, life-threatening misinformation.

The humiliation of growing up with a non-gender specific name isn't an excuse either. Being a manly man is not simply in the name. And irony aside, channeling one's inner elementary schoolgirl to name one's blog "Camp4U" is not going to mask any deep-rooted maculinity issues driving one's antigay legislative agenda, let alone be taken seriously as the intelligent musing of a well-adjusted man.

His barely coherent disclaimer on his blog excuses his ignorance as follows: "The information should be construed as open opinion and information contained in this document represents opinion or facts to the best of the writers knowledge and should not be viewed as permanent certified facts but as the way the information is interpreted by the opinion of the author."

And as deluded as he is about sexuality, that anyone familiar with the English language would knowingly appropriate his drivel, he warns: "Any and all information, statements, comments and opinions are the sole property of the author. Absolutely no duplication outside of the exclusive on line media community is allowed without expressed written permission of the author." Seriously. He need not worry.

To justify his antigay "Don't Say Gay" bill, he remarked: “I just think there are situations where some kids maybe sexually unsecure [sic] in themselves or sexually confused and don’t necessarily know clearly what direction they are. If someone, a person of influence, says maybe you’re gay, maybe you should explore those things — maybe the child, who is young and impressionable, says maybe I am gay,” 

Who knows what inner demons threaten Campfield's precarious masculinity. Or when it was the unmarried, 42-year-old, bible-thumping conservative chose to be straight. Or why he would wear a Mexican wrestling mask to Neyland Stadium only to be kicked out by police for scaring the shit out of young girls and subsequently their terrified mother.

He has issues.

And a platform.

 

Please Lie to Me - Art Mur Gallery's 15th Anniversary includes Torture

Four pieces from my Torture series are included in “Please Lie to Me,“ Montreal art gallery, Art Mûr’s, exhibition opening next week to celebrate the gallery’s 15th anniversary.

“Please Lie to Me,” (PDF invitation) features an exciting mix of globally diverse artists, including the Gao brothers, a duo of extraordinarily talented, highly controversial Chinese artists, with whom I had the pleasure of spending an evening trading censorship stories in Beijing in 2007 while I was exhibiting Torture with New York's Michael Petronko Gallery.

Torture is a series of staged and digitally manipulated photographic images that recreate the infamous torture scenes from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, transforming the diffuse, muted and low-resolution images into large-scale, vivid, powerful and frightening reproductions. I focused on the choreography and sexualization of torture, which included images of prisoners stripped naked, wearing hoods or sandbags as they're forced to stand in excruciatingly uncomfortable positions, simulate sexually degrading acts, are plastered with feces and subject to egregious humiliation.

In spite of the horror, the images, stylized with fashion-photography lighting, radiate a profound beauty and eroticism that is all at once seductive, disturbing and unsettling.

The series, unfortunately, is as relevant today as it was during the Bush administration that inspired, enabled, condoned and justified the torture perpetrated in America’s name. President Barack Obama has refused to deal with this issue seriously and hold those responsible accountable. That the orders came from the top are no longer theories, but chapters from the books of Dick Cheney and other players who not only admit to their illegal. globally condemned, human-rights-violating, trickle-down torture policies, but vow they would do it again. This blight on America’s moral standing remains, and will continue to. Dirty, ugly and embarrassing.

Euphemisms like “enhanced interrogation techniques” for torture and “looking forward” as an excuse for a failure to prosecute war crimes doom us to repeat the same mistakes down the road. And render any attempts to promote democracy around the world nothing more than a waste of time, effort and money. Until Dick Cheney and his cohorts are at down in handcuffs before a court, whether in Nuremberg, Johannesburg or Baghdad, America’s ten year adventure in Iraq will prove the costliest and deadliest public relations disaster in American history.

The coverage of the Torture series was quite expansive, and included interviews and explanations as to what inspired the show and what was learned as a result. I have included a few for those who haven’t seen it or been exposed to it.

Art Mûr is located at 5826 rue St-Hubert , Montréal, Québec, and the show runs from November 5 – December 12, 2011.

Additional artists include Lois Andison, Simon Bilodeau, Dominique Blain, Susan Bozic, Renato Garza Cervera, Cooke-Sassville, Clinton Fein, Sarah Garzoni, Karine Giboulo, Dina Goldstein, Nicolas Grenier, Jonathan Hobin, Guillaume Lachapelle, Cal Lane, Nadia Myre, Jennifer Small, The Gao Brothers, Diana Thorneycroft, Barbara Todd, and Colleen Wolstenholme.

 

Fein's counterfeits are not intended to reprise tired debates about originality and authorship. Unlike Sherrie Levine, who rephotographed Walker Evans's Depression-era images, or Thomas Ruff, whose enlargements of Internet images preserve and accentuate the flaws of screen grabs, Fein seized upon despicable amateur images, which unexpectedly had acquired public notoriety and probative value, and re-presented them in enhanced, painterly terms. His invocation of old-master painting, far from summoning up Christian martyrdom as do the Abu Ghraib canvases of Fernando Botero, delivers us to the dark threshold of inhumanity conjured by Goya.

Marcia E. Vetrocq, Rules of Engagement, Art in America

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The recent show, titled "Torture," consisted of staged and manipulated photographic images. Fein felt that the low resolution of the pictures taken by the GIs participating in the Abu Ghraib abuses - the images that later appeared in the press - had the effect of muting and veiling the actual horror of the scenes depicted. Only sharp, high-resolution images, he concluded, could convey the full impact of the humiliating atrocities and show what the corrupt leaders of a supposedly civilized nation routinely endorsed.

Peter Selz, Professor Emeritus of Art History at UC Berkeley, founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum and former curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art, Clinton Fein at Toomey Tourell, Art in America

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Like Loan's execution and America's lynchings, the acts recorded in the original Abu Ghraib images look like performances for the camera's eye, as though the greatest shame of all was to have the moment documented for an audience, for posterity. And by including himself within the exhibition, Fein engages head-on this question of the photographer's presence at scenes of violence. Perhaps the artist is as sinister a figure as the original prison guard. Perhaps Fein enjoyed making violence as beautiful as this, and now asks us to enjoy it-asks us to take as much pleasure in these scenes as the original prison guards, with their grins and gestures. Perhaps Fein's camera, which demanded of his models full nudity and physical exhaustion, is as aggressive as the prison guard's club.

Zoe Trodd, Member of Tutorial Board in History and Literature. Harvard University, Clinton Fein's Tools and the Master's House of Torture, Gallery Introduction, January 13, 2007

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Several contemporary artists have tried to evoke the grotesqueries of war...But no one else has reached the peculiar extremes to which Fein goes. Using hired models, he re-enacted and photographed scenes of cruelty that were recorded in the notorious unofficial photographs of "detainee abuse" at Abu Ghraib.

Fein presents these images as giant panel-mounted chromogenic prints. To viewers who remember the Abu Ghraib images, Fein's pieces will look both grimly familiar and oddly aestheticized. Two are his inventions.

Encountering them in an art gallery provokes tangled responses: outrage that someone would advance his own ambitions through the degradations the Abu Ghraib photos record; perverse temptation by the opportunity to study the mise-en-scene of the original pictures, safe in the knowledge of seeing simulations; despair that history has again diverted the resources of art away from pleasure and contemplation to bleak and urgent critical functions; and, finally, the recognition that, after all the barriers between art and life come down, nothing insulates our enjoyment of the arts against toxic pollution from our knowledge of real events.

Kenneth Baker, The Horror of Torture, Reinterpreted through Art, The San Francisco Chronicle

 

For more reviews, see http://www.clintonfein.com/torture/media.asp

Man Up

Despite a recent article, Budget Showdown: Senate Democratic Women Preserve Party’s Principles by my friend Tanya Domi about those Democratic lawmakers who stood up for Planned Parenthood (and those Republican women who didn't), it's obvious that this problem transcends party politics and national boundaries, and I don't think this global, ugly war on women is about capitalism either, as another friend Joanne Kalogeras suggested among other things (other than the fact that today is Equal Pay Day, reflecting the amount of time a woman must work into 2011 to receive the same pay that men earned in 2010).

The revolting treatment of women is even worse in dictatorships and theocracies, and while the forced abortion policies in China alone say enough about a non-religious domination of women, as does the Soviet treatment of women, the powerful role of patriarchal religions are at the source. And while enlightened people can look at ancient doctrines for a more inclusive, respectful role for women in the church or synagogue or mosque, it’s an uphill battle that is exhausting to even contemplate.

Without any reference to my position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, people often use this quote, disputably attributed to Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.”

I believe that this increasingly alarming war on women can only be won by having men join forces which can be achieved by capitalizing on the love they have for their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, daughters and wives. And that this war on women must be recharacterized as a direct attack on families, not just women. Reproductive rights, sexual abuse support systems, medical services etc. etc. must stop being characterized as women’s issues.

Crass is it sounds, let’s leverage misogyny, so that depriving a woman of choices and services is equated with denying a man the right to decide with his family what the best options are. Tackling the misogyny itself can come next.

I read a recent New York Times story about an 11-year-old girl who was repeatedly gang raped (18 suspects so far!) which chilled me to the bone. This wasn’t yet another Sharia-inspired, inappropriately and euphemistically termed “honor killing,” or the horrific story of a fourteen-year-old girl lashed to death for adultery after being raped.

Rather, this is an all-American, poverty-enabled, technology-glorified objectification that showed as much disregard for a young girl as John Boehner’s, Obama-green-lighted attacks against not only women, but families, in the name of deficit reduction.

Men. If you want to call yourselves that, stop attacking, raping, assualting and killing women with such unbridled hate, because they are my mothers, my sisters, my nieces, my grandmothers, my cousins and my friends you attack, and so me.

And trust me; with every weapon in my arsenal, I will fight you back. 

The Death of David Kato: A Family Affair

David Kato, a Ugandan activist who served as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was a brave and exceptional man. He was a leading opponent of the 'Anti-Homosexuality Bill' introduced in 2009 by MP David Bahati – a legislative proposal designed to criminalize any advocacy or support for LGBT people, and to punish homosexual conduct with the death penalty under certain circumstances. Having honed his activism in Johannesburg South Africa during the country’s transition from Apartheid, Kato was determined and fearless.

The international outrage over the legislation shone an unwelcomed spotlight on the homophobic climate of fear and hatred in Uganda, made worse by the concrete connection between the authors of the legislation and the insidious group, the Family, a highly secretive U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935, and led by Douglas Coe.

The bill was promoted by U.S. evangelical Christian leaders including Scott Lively, Don Schmierer, and Caleb Lee Brundidge, who met with Ugandan parliamentarians and advocated for increased strictures against homosexuality while preaching in Uganda in early 2009.

The unwelcome attention thrust the unwilling organization into the headlines again. They had yet to recover from a series of reports of relating to C-Street and a powerful expose by Jeff Sharlet, revealing many of their members (including almost every conservative senator) and their own scandals (including adulterous affairs by Senators John Ensign and David Vitter as well as South Carolina governor Mark Sanford).

On October 9, 2010, a Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone, published a cover story sensationally titled “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak,” in which names and photographs, and in some cases home areas of suspected homosexuals, were published. Framing the story as a national scandal, the publication invited a remedy. “Hang Them”. David Kato was one of two men prominently splashed above the fold on the front page.

The editor, Giles Muhame, (not to be confused with Jann Wenner, the openly gay publisher of the iconic music magazine Rolling Stone) told blogger and activist Melanie Nathan of Lez Get Real: “The homos argued that their right of privacy- had been breached when we published their pictures – but we must reveal these criminals to protect our children, Homosexuality is spreading like wildfire and we must stop it. The parliament is trying to strengthen the weak law.”

Undaunted, Kato and two other SMUG members who were also listed in the article, Kasha Jacqueline and Onziema Patience, took the tabloid to the Ugandan High Court, and on November 2, 2010, the court issued an interim injunction against ‘Rolling Stone’, banning them from publishing any further personal details of alleged homosexuals as an invasion of privacy.

On January 3, 2011, High Court Justice V. F. Kibuuka Musoke ruled that Rolling Stone's publication of the lists, and the accompanying incitation to violence, threatened Kato's and the others' "fundamental rights and freedoms," attacked their right to human dignity, and violated their constitutional right to privacy. The court ordered the newspaper to pay Kato and the other two plaintiffs 1.5 million Ugandan shillings each.

According to his SMUG colleagues, Kato had received an increase in threats and harassment since the court victory. And so it came as little surprise on January 26, 2011, when reports surfaced that Kato had died after being maliciously attacked with a hammer.

I didn’t think twice when my friend and fellow long-time activist, Michael Petrelis, asked me and a few other activists to help honor David Kato and condemn the Ugandan government. I suggested we set the date to coincide with the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. to once again shine the spotlight on the Family and their role in this unfortunate assassination. Please join us tomorrow night at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro, between 6-7pm, and show the Ugandans they are not alone.

David Bahati Needs a Really Gay Welcome

Uganda's “Kill the Gays Bill” author, David Bahati, claimed to be coming to Washington DC next week for the International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management's Winter Program (December 6-8, 2010).

Bahati being the Ugandan Parliamentarian who authored the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (advocating a death sentence for HIV positive gays, and life in prison for others).

I was hoping the conference would be brimming with gays and lesbians of every stripe and color. Truly, that’s what GLAAD and HRC should be spending their money on rather than ineffectively sucking up to the White House. Sponsoring conference attendees solely to make people like Bahati feel like shit, and chewed out and booed and ostracized and humiliated.

But turns out, despite Bahati's intentions,which he communicated in a telephone conversation with Prof. Warren Throckmorton, the International Consortium of Governmental Financial Management decided they didn't want his ilk there.

ICGFM Vice President of Communications,Doug Hadden, told Prof.Throckmorton in no uncertain terms that Bahati was not welcome, and would not be allowed to attend, even if he tried.

"Hon. Bahati has not paid and ICGFM will not accept payment from him. The ICGFM Executive Committee has agreed that his attendence is not consistent with the mission of the organization."

Glad that ICGFM wan't interested in taking Bahati's blood money, but I almost wish they would have allowed him to attend, just so he could have been given his just dessert.

Making Mountains Out of Mosques

You can see it, clear as day if you Google it.

The original site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the Journal Records Building is now a sad yet poignant tribute to what happened in Oklahoma City one awful morning on April 19, 1995, when a Catholic born man, Tim McVeigh, bombed the building, killing 168 people in the process. And injuring 450 others. 

 It's a pretty safe assumption that -- even in Oklahoma -- at least one of the people killed or injured, nineteen of whom were children or babies, was Muslim. Or Jewish, Or Hindu, or Wiccan. The building was located on NW 5th street between N. Robinson Avenue and N. Harvey Avenue. And yet on the same block, right there on N. Robinson Avenue, horror of horrors, stands the First United Methodist Church.

The Church was severely damaged in the bombing forcing it to relocate for three years. According to the Church's web site, within 36 hours of the bombing, "a banner was hung on our church declaring our 'can do' spirit for the entire world to see, 'OUR GOD REIGNS AND WE WILL REMAIN!'".

Maybe it was because it was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil up until the time that this grave affront slipped under the radar. Perhaps people were just too grief stricken to make the perfectly logical, pretzel-twisted, acrobatic leap that rebuilding a Church right next to a planned memorial site would be nothing less than distasteful and indecent and disgusting when the man responsible for the carnage was himself a Catholic. Indeed, William and Mildred "Mickey" McVeigh, McVeigh's parents, were Irish Catholics. 

"If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war," McVeigh said following his sentencing.

And so it is. The new flames of anti-Muslim violence are being fanned with a fervor that has infected even the most rational of minds. What was proposed as an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, where a Burlington Coat factory stood before it, has morphed into a mosque on Ground Zero.

While most Americans recognize the constitutional right to build the mosque, just as many still want to forbid it somehow. Distinctions between what's right and what's wrong, indecent and decent, fair and unfair are forming the foundation for arguments that violate the very essence of what America's First Amendment is all about, while those with the biggest stake in preserving freedom of religion become increasingly shrill in their objections to its expression.

As Republicans and conservatives of almost every stripe seize the controversy as the perfect mid-term election wedge issue, they are pouring gasoline on an already incendiary anti-Muslim tinderbox with the same degree of pressure – and ability to control it – as a ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The simplistic narrative from the hard-core right (aside, of course, for blaming President Obama), is that Muslims are insensitive, arrogant, and are taking advantage of our liberal laws (generally the point of having them, but I digress), and dishonoring the lives lost. In essence any structure anywhere near Ground Zero, represents a trophy. A victory for the Muslims that attacked us. And allowing these Muslims to build a "mosque on ground zero" (even if it’s a cultural community center with a prayer room on the site of a Burlington Coat Factory store) portrays Americans as weak, pathetic and defeated. 

 Even in the face of facts, the emotional reaction is so strong that it's almost impossible to engage in rational debate.

This country was founded with fundamental freedoms -- particularly when it comes to religion. Yes, there are many terrorists who are Muslims, but of the estimated 1.57 billion, they represent a minute fraction.

There were Muslims who were working in the Trade Center on 9/11 who died horribly, just like everyone else. Blood as red as everyone else's too. Some of the first responders – fireman, policemen and paramedics – who risked and gave their lives to save others, were Muslim. Some of the children who lost mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and loved ones were Muslim.

Even "Bring it On" George W. Bush, with the diplomatic nuance of a bucking bronco on Quaaludes in a china shop, cautioned immediately following the attacks not to confuse AlQuada with Islam. Or to target or blame the million upon million of Muslims for the minute fraction of demented extremists who hijacked the teachings of the Koran and attacked in the name of the Islam.

 • Do we forbid the building of synagogues in a radius around Wall Street because that's where Bernie Madoff ruined so many people's lives and tanked the global economy?

• Do we go and demolish the McDonalds in Hiroshima?

• Destroy the church in Oklahoma?

Using this logic, you will see resistance to the building of shuls in Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon because that's where depleted uranium was dropped on innocent Palestinians or Lebanese. No churches anywhere in Iraq after what America did to thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis. Consistency anyone? 

In response to these questions I posed to some friends of mine on the right I received this from one of my less extreme friends: "If Bernie Madoff fucked over all those people in the name of Judaism and if there was a worldwide Jewish 'jihad' then it would be wrong to build a shul at Wall Street or if the McDonalds in Hiroshima was an American nuclear weapons facility it would be wrong to build one there, and it would be wrong to build a church at the Oklahoma bombing if the Oklahoma bomber did it with the Pope's blessing or if Christianity issued 'fatwa's' on a regular basis....wrong BUT legal."

He added: "Here's the difference though. If Madoff or the Oklahoma bomber did 911 in the name of Christianity or Judaism, there would be worldwide demonstration by Jews and Christians condemning them and they would be the shame and outcasts of our religions, there would DEFINITELY not be churches or synagogues even suggested to be built there...but not from the Muslim world. No. I haven't seen a single demonstration or rally condemning the Islamic terrorists by Muslims anywhere. Especially not from nyc Muslims or American Muslims anywhere here. Suicide bombers are martyrs and bin Laden and his cronies are heroes. The fact that they want to build a mosque at or near ground zero exposes them to be sympathetic towards al Qaeda instead of the 911 victims and apathetic towards non-Muslim Americans...it's a huge endorsement, thanking al Qaeda and bin Laden for 911."

If this was completely true he would have a point. But although there are too few Islamic groups who speak out forcefully against violence and the hijacking of their religion, doesn't mean there aren't and haven’t been those who do. And for those that do condemn the terrorist acts of September 11th, capitulating to this pressure would signal acceptance that 911 was done in the name of all Muslims and mount to a tacit acceptance that they shoulder responsibility for it.

Very few condoned the actions of Yigal Amir, the right-wing radical who assassinated Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin after he signed the Oslo Accords in November 1995. Yet how many Jews would capitulate to pressure from any other nation or religion demanding that they don't build any synagogues at or in the proximity of Tel Aviv's "Kings of Israel Square"? Regardless of whether it hinged on Amir being Jewish or Israeli. Granted, the murder of one man is not quite the same as the killing of 3000, but the principle remains valid.

The more extreme of my friends were naturally less rational: "I disagree with your opinion. I know there is freedom of religion and all that stuff. Yes I know it is not on ground zero, it is 3 blocks away, yes I know Muslims were killed in the towers. Would be interesting to get their family opinions. No other religion is trying to put a religious temple and stick it to the American people. It is only this wonderful religion of peace that is trying to do it. If you want the playing fields level, let them o.k. a synagogue in Mecca as well."

Yes, those on the far right have resorted to comparing America to countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, firmly ensconced on the lower rungs of the freedom ladder.

In response to my comment that we don't punish entire religions because evil people identify with or ascribe to those religions, I received this: "Surely not all Germans were evil, not all Germans were Nazis but in the end they all paid the price for their radical countrymen. We painted them all with the same brush and defeated evil. Is it not time for the world to do the same? Allowing them to put up mosque is the wrong message to send. And if we are going to learn something from history it's that the world should stamp out evil at its early stage."

And so the debate rages, the pressure higher and more dangerous by the minute. And yet it seems so difficult for intelligent people to put the shoe on a different foot for just a moment.

I would understand some of the impassioned rhetoric slightly more if the premise of this debate was that religion – not just one, but all -- is the cause of so much war and violence that New Yorkers agree that nothing other than secular structures are to be built at ground zero. (Assuming of course that tacky stores or malls selling unnecessary shit most likely made in Chinese sweat shops is an appropriate, decent and tasteful way to remember the dead).

But that's not how this debate is being framed. It's targeting just one religion and history has shown us how that plays out.

No one is suggesting we build two towering minarets on Ground Zero. And for those that accuse me of defending Islam or being unwilling to stand up to criticize it, remember this. As editor and publisher of Annoy.com, I was one of the first web sites to republish the cartoons originally published in Denmark's Jyllands Posten newspaper, which sparked the furor among Muslims globally. Those images remain on the site to this day.

Despite threats of violence, I wrote in defense of publication of the cartoons: "We are not oblivious to the fact that religious and cultural differences are far more complex than anything we could articulate in this small space, but our fundamental belief is this. Freedom of expression is not reserved for those wishing to express their religious beliefs, but also those who question them."

Allowing people to exert their freedom to build -- even a mosque -- on private property is what portrays America as country that isn't scared of freedom. Arguments used by terrorists, who recruit on the basis that America is the Great Satan intent on killing Muslims, are rendered ineffective when our values and way of life trump their narrow, myopic view of the world.

There's no triumph for terrorists to gloat about, nor does holding this position suggest America is weak. If anything, our willingness to allow the freedoms this country was founded on to remain and not let an attack on us force us to change who we are and what we represent sticks a big fat middle finger in the face of those very terrorists. They hate who we are and what we stand for, so we don't change that to become them because THAT'S exactly what they want. The message is: "Don't think your unadulterated violence against us will change who we are. You don't wield that kind of power."

Our true American values are what frighten extremists of every stripe, because they are about our having confidence enough in who we are to not be governed by fear and knee-jerk reactions.

Not to mention, the presence of a mosque so close to Ground Zero might give terrorists poised to attack again reason to think twice.

Best NOT Buy

And the brands played on...

Like Target, Best Buy thought it would be a smart business decision to make significant contributions to the political action committee MN Forward, who is helping to elect rabid homophobe, Rep. Tom Emmer. The Minnesota Independent has also linked Emmer to a Minnesota Christian "punk-rock ministry" that supports the killing of gays and lesbians. Good business decision? We'll see.

The ever so faint silver lining in CUvFEC