Dissident, or assimilated conformist?

These are the words of a song by TradeMartin on YouTube, We’ve got to stop the mosque at Ground Zero:

We’ve got freedom of religion, I understand,

But …

OK, stop! I need hear no more. I got it.

Here are remarks of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defending Imam Rauf:

Imam Rauf, who is now overseas promoting America and American values, has been put under a media microscope. Each of us may strongly agree or strongly disagree with particular statements he has made. And that’s how it should be – this is New York.

And while a few of his statements have received a lot of attention, I would like to read you something that he said that you may not have heard. At an interfaith memorial service for the martyred journalist Daniel Pearl, Imam Rauf said, ‘If to be a Jew means to say with all one’s heart, mind, and soul: Shma` Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu Adonai Ehad; Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one. If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one.’

In that spirit, let me declare that we in New York are Jews and Christians and Muslims, and we always have been. And above all of that, we are Americans, each with an equal right to worship and pray where we choose. There is nowhere in the five boroughs that is off limits to any religion.

By affirming that basic idea, we will honor America’s values and we will keep New York the most open, diverse, tolerant, and free city in the world.

And finally,Abbie Hoffman:

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

The latter quote is on the wall above my desk. I like to think that I am not an assimilated conformist.