Given the high stakes involved and the heat of daily political battle, it can hardly be a surprise that some Congressional candidates say things that are so controversial that they seem to dominate an entire campaign. You can put Lou Ann Zelenik, a Republican candidate to fill Tennessee’s 6th District seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, in that unenviable category.
Late last month, Mrs. Zelenik called plans for construction of a new mosque in Murfreesboro “outrageous” and called it a threat to the state’s moral and political foundation. She’s spent almost every moment since then either explaining and defending her remarks. She’s having a tough time doing so.
Mrs. Zelenik, who proudly labels herself a leader in the Middle Tennessee tea party movement, obviously agrees with those strongly opposed to the construction of a 52,000-square-foot mosque and community center. Opposition to the building became public at a zoning hearing concerning it. Most there opposed the center, they said, because they became aware of the new mosque after construction was approved. If that claim is true and political chicanery is involved, there are well-defined methods available to challenge the approval.
A small minority of those present at the zoning hearing, though, seemed far more concerned with the group that was going to build the center than with the planning and zoning issues involved. Clearly, the fact that the new building was to be a mosque and a Muslim community center fueled their opposition and exposed their narrow-mindedness. Mrs. Zelenik’s comments seem to place her firmly in that camp.
“Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open out society to any of them,” she said in a statement.
What nonsense. Most Muslims in America have loudly and regularly condemned the excesses of their co-religionists around the world. Many are hard-working members of their communities who participate willingly and wholeheartedly in social, civic and government affairs. Indeed, many American Muslims are in uniform serving their country. Mrs. Zelenik’s remarks fail to acknowledge those facts.
The candidate, one of three leading GOP hopefuls for Mr. Gordon’s seat, later said she’s not opposed to the mosque but to the proposed “Islamic training center” that is part of the building. She didn’t say specifically that such a center would become a site for nefarious activities, but she certainly implied it. If that’s the case, she’s ill-informed, pandering to a mean-spirited part of the electorate or both.
Approval of a new mosque in Murfreesboro ought to succeed or fail on its merits and the law. Incendiary comments — from a Congressional candidate or anyone else — have no place in civil discourse. Mrs. Zelenik’s apparent intolerance is out of place — in everyday life and on the campaign trail.