WP: Ground Zero Mosque Fight Shows How Little We've Learned From U.S. History

[mjah]

Here's an interesting bigger-picture historical perspective on this whole Ground Zero mosque/community center deal, from a guy whose own personal history affords a unique point of view on the subject.

History is far more cyclical than snapshot-reactionaries seem to comprehend.

Ground Zero Mosque Fight Shows How Little We've Learned From U.S. History

Not far from where I am writing today, in the Charlestown section of Boston -- site of the Battle of Bunker Hill and a memorial to the Revolutionary War patriots who died there -- sat a Roman Catholic convent and school run by Ursuline nuns.

In 1834, the convent and school were burned in an anti-Catholic riot by local Protestant men, drunk with alcohol and paranoia. For good measure, the men returned the next night, found the sacred altar tabernacle hidden under a rose bush and burned it, too.

Boston Mayor Theodore Lyman condemned the riots and sought to promote inter-religious dialogue, but public opinion blew in another direction. A jury acquitted the ringleaders, and for more than a decade the Massachusetts Legislature refused to pay indemnification.

No plaque commemorates the forgotten site.

Anti-Catholic nativism was rampant in the United States in the 19th century. Samuel Morse is fondly remembered as the inventor of the telegraph, but he also wrote in a popular book: "We are dupes of our hospitality. The evil of immigration brings to these shores illiterate Roman Catholics . . . the obedient instruments of their more knowing priestly leaders."

And as late as the 1960s, as a Catholic teenage immigrant dating a Southern Baptist girl in Phenix City, Ala., I found myself squirming in the pews of her small, crowded church. The preacher ridiculed the president then in the White House -- John F. Kennedy -- as a papist and "fish eater."

And the piece gets far more interesting from there. Dude grew up with Gingrinch, worked in a Manhattan office which was later destroyed on 9/11, and has a daughter who was nearly killed in the London bomb attacks. Pretty interesting and poignant stuff.

[PeterMP]

This is a bit off topic, but Bloomberg is left of me on many issues, but I'd vote for him as President tomorrow.

Doesn't matter what label he had next to his name.

[mjah]

I'm still not sure about Bloomberg, but I have to admit that he has grown on me a bit lately.

And not like a wart, either.

[PleaseBlitz]

/makes mental note to call more people "fish-eaters."

[generaltso]

thats only on fridays during lent.

filet-o-fish sucks.

[Destino]

Good article, thanks for posting it. I was expecting some on Japanese camps as well as Japanese-Americans were subject to vicious hatred after pearl harbor as if they had something to do with it. Group hatred and prejudice is always proven wrong but at the time the haters always feel justified.

Gingrich should really be ashamed of himself for his comparison of Muslims to the Nazi.