The world had just witnessed the disastrous carnage of war at its worst. Lifelong friends had converged on the crest of a remote hill near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with clenched teeth, thrusting their remorseless bayonets, not knowing if their bullets might be killing a classmate or a brother. The Civil War was in full swing, and when the onslaught ended after three long days, nearly 8,000 soldiers had died on the battlefield of broken unity.
President Abraham Lincoln, in one of the most monumental displays of leadership the world has ever known, delivered his Gettysburg Address to help heal a bleeding nation. But he did so much more than praise the sacrifices of the troops that fell at Gettysburg—he memorialized the very ground on which they had died:
“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
Americans had died for a sacred cause—the battlefield, Lincoln told us, is holy. It is to be respected. It is to be remembered. And the day we forget it is the day we will twice be forced to pay the price of survival.
Since that chilly November day in 1863, when Lincoln delivered his immortal address, the ground at Gettysburg has been left undisturbed, a tribute to the fallen.
Just across the border in the larger city of New York, a similar hallowed ground is not being given such peace.
In May of this year, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative announced plans to build a 15-story mosque near Ground Zero, one of the sites of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The debate over whether or not the mosque should be built still rages.
President Obama, who has failed to be as supportive of our Jewish friends in Israel, threw his support behind the plan.
Just last year at a press conference in Turkey, Obama stated of the United States, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…”
Founding Father Patrick Henry must have had a different view when he said this:
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
President Obama is right about a different statement he made, however: Muslims have the right to worship where they want to do so. We live in a nation in which the supreme law protects that right. Religious oppression has never held a place here.
But this debate isn’t about whether Muslims have the right to build a mosque at Ground Zero; it’s about whether or not they should build it there.
It’s about respect. The leaders of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative should have the understanding and moral decency to build their place of worship in a place that is not so close to the hearts of those who lost loved ones on 9/11.
“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
Ground Zero, like Gettysburg, is consecrated ground. Should we not dedicate it, as Lincoln did, to those who gave their lives? September 11, 2001 was my generation’s Battle of Gettysburg, and so we must remember how that ground came to be hallowed.
We will forever debate whether or not we are a “Christian nation,” but that’s not what this controversy is about. It’s about being a compassionate people.
We will not force Muslims to build their mosque away from Ground Zero--we can only ask them for the consideration to help us, in the words of Lincoln, "...dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."
