Religious freedom fer us only.

Religious freedom fer us only.

[Kennesaw, Georgia] has rejected a request from a neighborhood Islamic group for the right to rent a local retail space for worship services, frustrating local Muslims looking for a place to pray and sparking debate over the definition of religious freedom.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the majority of the council voted against the motion, but their actions were celebrated by opponents of the mosque, including many who protested outside the city council building before the vote. The demonstrators held signs emblazoned with anti-Islam slogans such as “Ban Islam” and “Islam wants no peace!”, and appeared to oppose both the mosque and Islam in general. “To me [the mosque] is a threat to my freedom, my liberties, and everything I own,” one demonstrator told local news station 11 Alive.

Another reminder that for all our big talk, many or most parts of America still haven't gotten on board with the notion of religious freedom. Large portions of our population do indeed want only their own religion to be recognized or protected, and will proudly hold up signs demanding we bar all the others Sparking debate among people who give a damn about true religious freedom, that is. That would not be these people.That is because you, m'lady, are a fuckwit. If the presence of nearby Muslim Americans praying represents a threat to your liberties or your toaster oven, you don't know how to work either of those things.

To the credit of others involved, the Muslim group's lawyer is not backing down and the only one of the city council members to vote that the group be allowed to open the temporary mosque is herself peeved at the community's behavior. Apparently the anti-Islamic demonstrators have vastly different ideas of what the aforementioned "liberties" mean.



[Council member Cris Eaton-Welsh] told ThinkProgress that, because she was expected to vote in favor of the mosque, she was forced to accept police protection in the days before the vote. She said authorities offered to guard her home after an anti-Islam group posted her personal information online — including her home address and photographs of her children.

Because now her children are a threat to everything the local blowhards hold dear as well.

It is tempting to throw up our hands here and just explain because Georgia, but the same thing happens everywhere else as well. It happens in California. It happens in New York City. It happens wherever there is a group of brick-stupid people who do not understand words like "liberty" and "freedom" even though they (mostly) know how to spell the words for their posterboard signs, and America has more brick-stupid people than any one town or state can hold. Explain to them that because Christians have committed so many bombings and shootings and assassinations in modern America that it's gotten nearly impossible to count them all, their own personal religion is also "a threat to freedom" and "wants no peace" and shall henceforth be barred from meeting to worship by local government officials, and see how they react. But you'll need police protection afterward.

