The recent brouhaha over the erection of a community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks has been fueled by some of the most base aspects of our society.

At its heart the argument against the center is paranoid and racist.    Because an Islamic group is building the center, people across the country are rushing in to show their ignorance and bigotry by opposing construction, not with cool-minded logic, but with shouted threats and racial epithets thinly veiled in patriotism.

Much has been made of the community center being seen as some sort of monument to the terrorists of 9/11. This argument reduces the entirety of the religion of Islam to a base perversion of its true form. In the same way that not all Catholics are pedophiles, not all Jews are misers, and not all Baptists are televangelists, not all Muslims are terrorists.

In fact, a mosque near ground zero should be seen as a victory over the terrorists. It shows that the U.S. is a nation that rises above the rhetoric of terrorists and defends the rights of its minorities, even against the majority.

That this argument continues to be fought, despite it being so constitutionally clear cut, is a testament to the institution of prejudice in this country. To have spent so many years learning about the civil rights and women’s rights movements only to have to see the same story play out again and again is the kind of thing that makes me disappointed in the citizenry of this country.

I will even go so far as to say that if you are against the erection of the Cordoba House two blocks from ground zero, or the building of any mosque in the country, you are a paranoid racist, and it is time for your kind to step aside and allow a more tolerant generation to take the stage.

David Holmes is an economics junior. He can be reached at [email protected].