The 21st Century Crusade, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #175

June 21, 2010 Mike Gold 0 Comments

Remember a couple weeks ago (BOB #171, “Muslims To Invade Manhattan!”) I told the story of the bigots who think that the establishment of a mosque a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center is an assault on the memory of those who died on 9/11? It was a cute piece that explained how a whole lot of citizens believe Muslims are, by definition, murderous bastards in collusion to destroy the American way of life and replace it with the tenants of their faith.

Across the Hudson from the World Trade Center lurks a large place called Staten Island. It’s part of the New York City combine, although it appears many New Yorkers don’t care for the place and have never been there. On Staten Island, there’s an old nunnery. The Catholic Church there signed a contract to sell it to the Muslim American Society for the establishment of a mosque. When word got out about the sale, the natives got restless.

The citizens held a neighborhood meeting 400 people strong. They demanded the Church default on the contract and withdraw the sale. Muslims can’t have their church in a god-fearing place like the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island. People interviewed said that the Mosque would harbor terrorists and that they just didn’t like or trust Muslims.

Can you imagine the response of the deal went the other way? Let’s say a bunch of Muslims said the Catholics would use their former mosque to house terrorists and use it as a safe house for molesting children and for furthering their mission to destroy the American way of life and replace it with the tenants of their faith? Do you think that would fly for even a New York minute? Of course not.

To be fair, there are areas in this country where the dominant belief is that Catholics (I believe in this context they’re called Papists) are indeed out to destroy the American way of life and replace it with the tenants of their faith, and we have footage and photos of hundreds of Klan rallies to prove that point. Nonetheless, today it’s politically incorrect to rally against Catholics but it’s very patriotic to demean the Muslim faith.

(And, please, spare me the Koran quotes. I’ve read the Koran. I’ve also read various versions of “the bible” and I can match you on such seemingly hate-filled statements one-for-one.)

After this meeting – one hopes the participants had the decency to carry pitchforks and firebrands – St. Margaret Mary Church pastor Rev. Keith Fennessy said he had “concluded that the contemplated sale would not serve the needs of the parish.” He later served notice that he was quitting his post as parish priest.

Another victory for the bigots. And New Yorkers are so sophisticated. Give us your tired, your poor… but not your Irish. No, I mean not your blacks. No, I mean Latinos. No, I mean Muslims. Damn, I’ve got to listen to talk-radio more in order to update the national shit list.

The Muslim American Society says they have a valid contract and they expect the sale to conclude over Father Fennessy’s cowardice. Maybe that will happen; as of this writing the Archdiocese still supports the sale. If so, the folks who will go to that mosque to work and to pray and to use the facilities of its community services will be the ones showing real courage.

That would be in sharp contrast to all those hate-filled folks in the neighborhood who have absolutely no idea what it means to be an American.

Media metaphysician and www.ComicMix.com editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times). Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants pop up each and every day at the same venue.