Opinion: You can put lipstick on a pig, but should you bring one to Ground Zero?

In the case of Padua, the Muslims behind that mosque remained defiant. “We believe in God, not in superstition,” said the local imam Kahlhil Boussuni. “And we intend to build our place of prayer and worship where only the faithful will be permitted to enter.” It appears, however, that for reasons either bureaucratic or political, the Padua mosque has not been built.

Mariella Mazzetto said she wasn’t racist or xenophobic, but trying to spark a debate. Which brings us to our current problem at Ground Zero, where Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf intends to “bring people together” – whether you like it or not.

The Padua story got me thinking. Maybe I’ll just bring a pig down to Ground Zero — it’s only 5 blocks from my house, and having lived through 9/11 I know the area well.

Like Ms. Mazzetto, I’m not motivated by racism or xenophobia. But I would like to make a point. See, every day this country’s most revered storytellers — Frank Rich, Keith Olbermann and Katie Couric — tell me that I’m Islamophobic for suggesting it’s insensitive to put a mosque near a cemetery where 2,000 innocent people were killed by Islamic terrorists. And they tell me I hate freedom because I’m just a little distrusting of a guy who thinks 9/11 was sort of our fault. And they tell me I’m intolerant because I think common sense and decency aren’t just vestigial organs we’ve evolved beyond.

The truth is, aside from belching at movies and occasionally puking in the streets on New Year’s, we’re far too polite a society to bring a pig to Ground Zero and gently nudge it to urinate on the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory building. And aside from our considerable distrust of bull’s testicles in olive oil and our preference for ice in our drinks, we’re far too tolerant a society to spike a pig’s head on a post in front of 51 Park Place.

The way we’ve handled the mosque has been to talk about it, the horror. And for that we are called Neanderthals and racists. President Obama, Michael Bloomberg, Nancy Pelosi and the liberal media don’t know what Islamophobia and intolerance actually look like. And maybe I should be the one to show them. Maybe then, after we’ve become a country where pigs urinate on buildings, and pig heads dot the countryside, they’ll realize just how good they had it.