Marci Hamilton  The Ongoing Controversy Over the Planned Mosque
Near Ground Zero: How It Reveals Important Fault Lines in
Americans' Thinking About Religion   Friday, September 10, 2010
The public debate over whether a planned Islamic center, which
will include a mosque, should be located two blocks from Ground
Zero has revealed several critical fault lines in Americans'
thinking about religion -- as this column will explain.  The
First Fault Line: A Tendency to Oversimplify Religious Identity
First, despite the dizzying diversity of religious believers in
the United States, Americans have a strong tendency to
oversimplify religious identity.  For example, the Republican
Party, or at least elements of it, for several years have been
controlled by a narrow set of Christian beliefs that are treated
as the only "true" Christian beliefs. In these Republicans'
calculus, "Christian" has meant anti-abortion, anti-homosexual,
and anti-stem cell research -- with no exceptions. And just as
the Republican Party has im