There's no wrong way to do the right thing...even five years later

Newsweek writer and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has returned an award he received in 2005 from the Anti-Defamation League over the Jewish group’s opposition towards the Ground Zero mosque…. “Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize,” Zakaria writes in next week’s Newsweek. “I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.”

I’ve long believed that there comes a time in everyone’s life when one is faced with a moral dilemma which defines the sort of person you are. This dilemma usually involves recognizing when something isn’t right…and taking a stand (or not) to draw attention to said injustice. Sometimes taking such a principled stand means losing something, or giving something up that you may not have wanted to. In the case of Fareed Zakaria, he recognized that the Anti-Defamation League’s opposition to the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero placed him in an unwanted moral quandary. To his credit, he also recognized the need to do the right thing, and he did it without hesitation.

I’m not really a fan of Zakaria; indeed I know little about him, other than he’s whip-smart. I’ve also just learned that he has a well-developed sense of right and wrong…not something you generally find in abundance in his line of work. In my eyes, Zakaria is due full props and respect for doing what he saw as the right thing- standing up against a group that is for all intents and purposes sanctioning religious discrimination. That the ADL, a Jewish advocacy group, has come out in opposition to the mosque near Ground Zero is both reprehensible and worthy of condemnation. You’d think a Jewish group would understand the concepts at work here, but in the end it was apparently just easier to jump on the “ISLAM BAD!!” bandwagon. Zakaria recognized ADL’s moral cowardice for what it is, and registered his displeasure by doing what he felt to be the right thing- returning his award, five years after the fact. How many of us would have done the same thing?

Would that more Americans could take a clue from Zakaria’s courage and conviction. That would certainly makes America a better and more inclusive place.

BTW…for those of you who think that a mosque near Ground Zero is offensive to the memory of 9/11 and those who died as a result of the attacks, there’s already a mosque at the Pentagon. You DO remember freedom of religion, right?? Or do you really think that’s something that can rightfully be claimed only by Christians?