Quote from Anthony Gregory's "The Persistence of Red-State Fascism"

"The idea of religious tolerance should be sacred in America. If there is any reason to be patriotically proud of America’s legacy of freedom, religious freedom is at the top of the list. We were all taught as children how great America was in this regard. And, unlike some other examples of American exceptionalist propaganda, there is actually truth to this. We have no religious wars within our borders. We have no official state religion, thank God. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, atheists, Buddhists and others get along in nearly perfect harmony. This is the crown jewel of American liberty.

The rightwing, however, considers it "politically correct" or even "treasonous" to defend the right of Muslims to pray on their own private property. The explosion of hysteria over the Islamic Community Center in Manhattan was not, as some would have it, an example of political trivia taking over the national debate – it was rather an important national debate over a very fundamental issue on which Americans should by now be mostly united, but instead the rightwing clearly took the wrong side, showing their craven willingness to reject private property rights and the foundation of civilization simply to express their love of the U.S. government and their hatred of Islam."