I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Conservative commentator and potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is citing the arrest of four Christian missionaries in June at the Dearborn International Arab Festival in defense of his position that the government should prevent the building of a proposed Islamic center a few blocks from Ground Zero in New York.
The Detroit Free Press reports:
Newt Gingrich is blasting Dearborn Police for arresting four Christian missionaries at an Arab festival in June, saying it’s an example of Islamic intolerance.
He cites the case as one reason why he opposes construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan…
Gingrich said the missionaries were handing copies of Christian literature, which is “of course, forbidden by sharia’s rules on proselytizing.” …
In his letter, Gingrich cites other examples of Islamic extremism in the U.S.
He then writes: “Cases like this will become all the more common as radical Islamists grow more and more aggressive in the United States. It is in this context that the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero must be seen.”
Gingrich has it exactly backwards. The reason why the arrest of the four Christian missionaries in Dearborn was wrong is because the arrests violated their constitutional rights. That is the same reason why the government must not prevent the opening of the Islamic center in Manhattan, because there is no legitimate legal authority for doing so and it would clearly violate their constitutional rights to prevent it.
The building is owned by a Muslim group. The proposed usage is well within the zoning regulations and was approved by the local zoning board. There is no legal means to prevent them from using it as they see fit, no matter how emotionally some people may react to it.
The irony is that folks like Gingrich argue that we have to prevent becoming a repressive society by becoming a repressive society. In reality, we are much better off simply maintaining the rule of law and the constitutional safeguards we have in place. Those safeguards will protect against both Sharia law and the authoritarian impulses coming to the fore in response to it.
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