Depending upon their willingness to demonstrate a straight-up, full on bigotry or a kinder and gentler sort of discrimination, opponents of the Cordoba House project will tell you it’s about Islamists, Muslims, or the victims of 9/11. Their opponents counter that it’s about freedom of religion, the constitutional guarantees of liberty and basic human values of tolerance and diversity.

But here’s the thing. It’s not about Ground Zero, it’s not about the constitution, and it’s not even about religious freedom. Ultimately, its about us. All of us Americans, collectively. We need to decide what kind of society we want to live in. We need to figure out to what extent we want other people’s hatred to determine whether we can actually have faith in the promises and guarantees made to us in the founding documents. We need to decide if we want to follow the example of Ibn Saud, or that of Thomas Jefferson. We need to choose whether we show the world we stand uncaring and powerless before our base fears and tribal hatreds, or if instead we stand up and demonstrate, once again, that America defends her values fearlessly and without reservation.

No matter how you personally feel about Muslims and mosques, you have to recognize that this is a one-way trip, a simple, irreversible binary choice. As there can be no real doubt that the Imam and his congregation have every right to build their mosque where they wish, it comes down to something more nuanced, and much more pernicious. Do you want people, either by dint of their popular majority or their frantic shrieking and hand-waving to have the power to over-rule the basic rights and freedoms granted to all Americans? Do you understand that if it’s just Muslims today, it will be Jews tomorrow and atheists after that and in the end, the battle for the smouldering rubble of the American experiment will be fought between Catholics and Protestants, with the victors laying claim to just another totalitarian theocracy?

It truly makes me wonder. Can even the likes of Gingrich and Palin actually be proud of an America so willing to run away from her core values? In the name of political expediency and tribal nativism, balanced against all the history and sacrifice that has come before? If they actually got their way, and Cordoba House project was blocked, would they see it as a bright and shining moment for America? Or would it be a Pyrrhic victory, with the taste of ashes, as they wondered if it could be a Mosque in New York today, might it be a Church in Kansas or a book in Georgia or a political party in South Carolina tomorrow.

We need to stand up as Americans, collectively, and tell the demagogues and fear-mongers, the politicians and pundits alike, that we’re better than this. Indeed, this is what makes us Americans, and this is why we believe America is important. We need to tell them that its not about how we feel, or what we’d prefer, it’s about what we believe, and ultimately, its about who we are.