Cross-posted at River Twice Research. This article first appeared in The Atlantic.

Over the past two months, the planned construction of a Muslim cultural center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site has become the fulcrum of an acrimonious debate about religion, freedom of expression, and the place of Islam in the United States. You would have had to be living off-the-grid somewhere not to have noticed the hundreds of opinion pieces, thousands of blogs, and considerable airtime on television and radio. As characterized by Newt Gingrich, the planned center is no less than the latest chapter in a war of civilizations: “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.”

Opposition is mounting to the “Burn a Koran Day” scheduled for September 11th in Florida. President Obama today condemned the event, urging Pastor Terry Jones to cancel. General David Petraeus said it could harm our troops, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it unrepresentative of Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder called it “idiotic and dangerous,” and the Vatican has called the planned demonstration “outrageous and grave.”

GOP, you wanted to gin up the bigot base of your party? Well, you got your wish. A man hailed cab at 24th Street in Manhattan and asked the cabby if he was a Muslim. When the cabby responded in the affirmative, the man slashed him in the throat, hand, upper arm and lips.

For a lot of reasons it makes all the sense in the world to start a movement now to Ban Glenn Beck from Ground Zero. I hope you’ll join me. So, if you see him anywhere around there, tell him to “Get! Get!”

Mosque sponsors have $18 thousand to build a $100 million project. Yeah, like that’s gonna’ actually happen.

Fear. It’s a powerful tool, and has often been misused throughout history, and especially in the recent history of the United States. It was used to prevent John Kerry from becoming president, used to obstruct the current administration, and now in an election season it’s used to move conservative voters by way of a manufactured controversy over the Cordoba House mosque. Protecting our freedoms, indeed.

The Republican Party has effectively told American Muslims — who they had been openly courting not so long ago — that they can join African Americans and Americans of Latino descent in the ever-growing universe of people the GOP thinks are useless eaters. This is because the dictates of the corporate-bigot alliance known as the “Southern Strategy” have put severe limits on the size of the GOP’s tent.

The disease of fear and bigotry is contagious. We don’t need to give oxygen to prejudice, especially when America is composed of so many different ethnicities. We not only need to get along, we need to understand each other.

I am watching the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing (on NY1 for locals). All of the commissioners seem to be coming down on the side of NOT preserving the building currently on the site. [Update: all commissioners have spoken, the vote is in, and the building has been removed from the commission's calendar, 9-0. That means [...]