Couple more thoughts on the Islamic center being built near the site of the 9/11 attacks. We can understand the emotions without letting them dictate policy.  And just asking: how many of the righties who would like emotions to dictate policy have, under other circumstances, have cried “oooo noooo! political correctness!” when asked to consider others’ feelings in so simple a thing as their choice of words.

First, I thought this passage below was one of the best analogies I’ve read. Now, I don’t want to discount my gun-shop-near-Columbine-High-School analogy for its sheer smart-ass irritation value.  But the analogy below is much more subtle and well-thought-out. Conor Friedersdorf — a fairly conservative guy – writing in Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish:

Imagine a suburban street where three kids in a single family were molested by a Catholic priest, who was subsequently transferred by the archbishop to a faraway parish, and never prosecuted. Nine years later, a devout Catholic woman who lives five or six doors down decides that she’s going to start a prayer group for orthodox Catholics — they’ll meet once a week in her living room, and occasionally a local priest, recently graduated from a far away seminary, will attend.

Even if we believe that it is irrational for the mother of the molested kids to be upset by this prayer group on her street, it’s easy enough to understand her reaction. Had she joined an activist group critical of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the molestation, it’s easy to imagine that group backing the mother. As evident is the fact that the devout Catholic woman isn’t culpable for molestations in the Catholic church — in fact, even though we understand why her prayer group upsets the neighbor, it is perfectly plausible that the prayer group organizers never imagined that their plan would be upsetting or controversial. In their minds (and in fact), they’re as opposed to child molestation as anyone, and it’s easy to see why they’d be offended by any implication to the contrary.

Presented with that situation, how should the other people on the street react? Should they try to get city officials to prevent the prayer meetings from happening because they perhaps violate some technicality in the neighborhood zoning laws? Should they hold press conferences denouncing the devout woman? Should they investigate the priest who plans to attend? What if he once said, “Child molestation is a terrible sin, it is always wrong, and I am working to prevent it from ever happening again. I feel compelled to add that America’s over-sexualized culture is an accessory to this crime.” Does that change anything?

Emotionally, we understand where the mom of the molested kids is coming from, just as we understand how the families who lost relatives in the WTC bombings may be feeling.  Hell, my father died in an ICU in Orlando and I’ve basically been unwilling to return to the entire state of Florida for 13 years. I get the trauma of profoundly negative associations. But I also get that they’re irrational: I would not purport to dictate public policy or even private real estate decisions based on my own trauma avoidance emotions.  And nothing justifies a bunch of politicians who — on all other issues — don’t give a rat’s ass about New Yorkers suddenly placing the emotions of those elite east coast city dwellers at the top of their list of concerns.

But I’m also wondering — not enough to do any actual research — how many of the righties who are milking this situation for political gain are at the same time opposed to hate speech laws or campus codes? Remember:  “political correctness” is an epithet of the right, meant to disparage the over-reliance on feelings in judging speech.  Now for what it’s worth, I’m very much opposed to hate speech laws and campus codes, for largely the same reasons I have no problem with the proposed Islamic center: our emotions cannot be permitted to curtail others’ First Amendment rights. But you can’t ask the City of New York to ban or move the Islamic center for emotional reasons while trumpeting the efforts of right wing students, for example, to offend minority groups on campus. (Again, of course, I’m in favor of offending everyone — that’s why I started this blog.)