Washington Times columnist Robert Knight is bringing back the right-wing “victory mosque” meme, this time claiming that a Muslim prayer service held at the National Cathedral in Washington sends a message “of weakness” to American Muslims who “see it as akin to raising their flag over a conquered enemy.”
Knight wrote in his column Friday:
At the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, the Episcopal Church announced that the historic edifice was to host its first Muslim service on Friday. That's right. The symbol of America's Christian heritage in the nation's capital, which earlier turned the nave into a yoga center, was to ring with homages to Allah.
Planners call it "a powerful symbolic gesture," and hope it will inspire more religious tolerance around the world. You know, like those "coexist" bumper stickers that imply all religions are equally intolerant and need to get, like, tolerant.
The cathedral is, indeed, sending a powerful message — of weakness. Many Muslims will see it as akin to raising their flag over a conquered enemy. Ever since Muhammad launched jihad in the 7th century, victorious Muslims have made a point of erecting mosques on the site of synagogues or churches, or converting grand church buildings into mosques, such as the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul).
This is one reason many people were apoplectic when plans were announced for a mosque near ground zero in New York, the site of Muslim militants' greatest victory over the Great Satan America.
In the brave new world of tolerance, only Christians and sometimes Jews are told to be silent, to celebrate sin, or even to host worship of what Christians and Jews for centuries have regarded as a false god.
