The Ground Zero mosque debate

By Samuel C. Damren

Given the heated debate in America over the expansion of a Mosque near Ground Zero, Founding Father Thomas Paine’s observations over 200 years ago about religion, government, and religious conflicts merit reflection today.  When America won its independence from England and established the Constitution, most of the Founding Fathers viewed the revolution at an end.  Paine did not.  The author of “Common Sense” was gratified to secure democratic freedom from an unjust royalty, but he wanted much more.  During and after the revolution, Paine argued for the end of slavery, full suffrage for women, abolition of the death penalty, progressive taxation to support the poor, and free public education.  Paine risked his life to promote these ideals here and abroad.  He was an Englishman who returned to England after the revolution to seek similar freedoms for his former countrymen.  In response, the King placed a death warrant on him for seditious libel.  Paine escaped to France where French revolutionaries invited him to their convention to assist in writing a French Constitution.  But when the revolution turned to the Reign of Terror, Paine appeared before the Convention and opposed Robespierre’s plan to execute Louis XVI on moral grounds.  In response, Robespierre scheduled Paine for the guillotine.  Shortly after issuing Paine’s death sentence, however, Robespierre was violently ousted from power by his political competitors.  In the confusion, Paine was able to leave Paris, find refuge in Luxemburg, and later return to America.
In the preface to “The Age of Reason,” which he wrote in Luxemburg, Paine said to his readers:  “I put the following work under your protection.  It contains my opinion upon religion.  You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine.  He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.”
“The Age of Reason” contains a searing critique of the underlying beliefs of nearly all organized religions, concluding that their “mythologies” were little more than “fables” without logical or scientific foundation.  Not surprisingly, these broadsides created great enmity toward Paine from many.  His personal views on Christian dogma, however, contrast his views on the interaction of religion and government expressed in “Common Sense.”  “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all governments, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. . . .  For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us: it affords a larger field for our Christian kindness.”  In his writings, Paine also reflected on the potential dilemmas posed by differing religious beliefs when he aptly noted, “if every one is left to judge of his own religion, then there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other’s religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and therefore all the world is right, or all the world is wrong.” 
While it is never easy to reconcile national and cultural differences and competing religious ideals, tolerance of diversity of opinion and respect for the beliefs of others requires us to think beyond our borders.  It was for these reasons Thomas Paine affirmed over 200 years ago that “my country is the world and my religion is to do good.”  Americans who urge that restrictions be placed on the location of a Mosque near Ground Zero—when there are strip clubs and bars even closer to what is referred to by many as hallowed ground—should answer this question: How can America ask hundreds of millions of Muslims to be our allies in conflicts overseas when we judge the rights of their religion in the Land of the Free as less than those of bars and strip clubs?  Unless the answer is to eliminate the restrictions, the response will be an affront to Muslims no matter how carefully nuanced.  Beyond our borders, the affront will be magnified by those inciting violent conflict with the West.  This is the self-renewing fodder of religious wars.  Without reflection, each side will effortlessly produce an endless supply for the other to consume and together they will grow the conflict. 
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Samuel C. Damren is a senior partner at Dykema Gossett PLLC in Detroit.  His practice includes litigation, corporate governance, and business law.