Is the question really one of where to build? 

            When a long planned and first time trip to Italy loomed, I thought it would be a good time to learn about my ancestry.  Growing up with a very Irish name but believing I was Italian due to being raised in proximity to my mother’s family, I began my search with the hopes of learning of my Italian forebearers.  I loved both my “Nanna” and “Pop-pop” who both died way too young for me to know them well or question them about their lives.  I had little to go on and sorry to say, found very little to supplement even the scant information I had.

            Yet the paternal side was easy.  A few years earlier I found my great-grandfather’s (Irish) and great-grandmother’s (German) marriage certificate in a pre-Katrina New Orleans library.  That led to my grandfather’s birth certificate and then to my dad’s in Chicago.  My father’s mother who lived with us on and off through my childhood and always brought a dark, angry presence to the household and in whose ancestry I was least interested was incredibly easy to trace.  But she did have one little story that had intrigued me.  She claimed to be “The Perfect American” being of English and Native American descent and being from Boston.  Quite a claim!  Her ancestry was startling, to say the least.

            Her name was Lucinda Fairfield prior to her marriage to Patrick Henry Killcoyne.  I was able to trace her family tree (in which many Lucinda Fairfields resided) all the way to the 1600’s.  The Fairfield family was one of three founding families of Kennebunkport, Maine.  Besides the original ancestral residency, the family had been granted land in payment for fighting in the American Revolution.  I know I take the long way around, but here is where this piece really begins.

            The question is not where to build a community center or mosque or cooking school and gymnasium, it is who decides where anything gets built.  The cornerstone of prosperity of modern democracies is private property ownership.  Only when a man can own his acre and do whatever his heart desires within described boundaries can a man be free from the capricious whim of a feudal landlord or a slave master.  Add to the right of private property the right of freedom of worship and you have the unassailably absolute right to build said mosque.  End of story (if only that were true!).

            My father raised four boys.  In turn each of these boys did military time (with the notable exception of yours truly whose draft year of 1972 made avoidance of the military possible).  However, my only son joined the Navy and has been employed there since days after 9/11.  My father signed up for the Army Dec. 8, 1941.  He fought in the Philippines, Guam and other tropical paradises.  His father was Navy during The Great War.  On the Italian side, my “Pop-pop” served in the US military during WWI after a stint in the Italian military.  So you see my family has populated the ranks of those who would give their lives to earn and protect the uniquely American ideal going all the way back to 1776.

            Now that you have my bona fides on the subject of America, I wish to make a simple statement.  It is this.

            Those of you who believe that it is “sacrilegious” or “un-American” or “dishonoring to the memory of lost ones” or whatever other cover you wish to use against building a mosque within sight of Ground Zero are traitors to America and everything its men and women (and many times children) have sacrificed, fought, bled and died for.  You dishonor this country and all the good it has done since its founding.  You dishonor every person who swore an oath to uphold and defend its Constitution.  If you are one of those who swore that oath, you should be removed from whatever office you hold and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  You are guilty of treason.  No, you do not simply hold a “differing opinion” for if that was all it was then this great nation would allow and defend your right to do so.  Instead, you foment intolerance and hatred for your own petty ends.  You deny these words:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag . .  and to the Country for which it stands”

“We the People of the United States, in order to form a More Perfect Union”

And most assuredly,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

                                       __________________

After all, if its consistency of dogma you are really after, I am certain there are openings in North Korea.