Lean Left

I miss this Republican Party, I really do:

“In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue, and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies, and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

“In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.

…

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.

“On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?’

People often accuse me of being nothing more than a blind partisan with eyes closed to the faults of the Democratic Party. That is not true, but the GOP has, unfortunately, left me with no choice. The contents of Bloomberg’s speech should be unremarkable. Just a handful of years ago, this was the default position among even the most rabid GOPers, largely because their hero, W, refused to wade into the festering swamp of anti-Mulsim bigotry. But now, the GOP wallows in it, seeing fear mongering about the so called Muslim menace for temporary political gain.

The fact that Bloomberg’s speech is newsworthy shows just how far down the GOP has fallen. They have gone insane and they leave me with no choice but to vote against them under all circumstances. How can I conceive of supporting people who attack decent people for what they are, not what they do? How can anyone?