I think the Ground Zero mosque is a symbol of victory of radical Muslims over America and will irritate us like a mote in our eye.

The defenders of the Ground Zero mosque project try to make it a freedom of religion issue. They say Islam has the same freedom of religion that all other religions have because this country guarantees freedom of religion. This is not quite true, though, because this freedom is conditional. So, I will present a slightly different argument, than “it is an insult” or “the sources of funding.”

Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion only if the practices of that religion do not conflict with American law. For all religions except Islam, this restriction is not a problem; but for Islam, it is an insoluble problem. After all, Shariah law is an integral part of the Islamic religion, and Shariah law stands in stark conflict with American law. That is why every Muslim majority country has rejected our Universal Declaration of Human Rights in favor of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which makes all human rights subordinate to Shariah law.

Thus, a Muslim is free to practice Islam only to the extent that Islam does not conflict with American law. However, since much of Islam does conflict with American law, a religious Muslim is not fully free to practice his religion. You might say that this restriction on freedom of religion, that is, the requirement not to violate American law, has a disparate impact on Muslims.

Of course, non-religious Muslims are already not practicing their religion, so this restriction would not bother them. But, religious Muslims are fully free to practice Islam only where Shariah law is the law of the land.

So, if the purpose to any degree of any mosque, is to promote Shariah law, the objections to it should be great. The mosque deserves no such right to freedom of religion. In fact promoting Shariah is sedition in slow motion. This is why some people in this country are objecting strongly to recent plans to build and to the building of mosques.

John J. Nosser

Natchez resident