Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Now, thanks to Newt Gingrinch, that should settle it!

Well, except for one thing, if you factor in the faulty equivocation.

The right comparison, one that Newt would never use, would be “We would never accept a German Luthern Church next to the Holocaust Museum.” Such a statement would be utterly ridiculous, as ridiculous as Newt’s statement.

If you want to degrade a people, just attack their religion in the name of national security.  Insist that the mere affiliation with a worship culture different than “ours” is potentially an act of treason and terrorism.  Then in so doing, lend credence to those religious leaders who can only reduce another religion to extremes without acknowledging their own extremism.

Speaking of Nazis, I wonder if Mr. Gingrinch has given any thought to the calculated effort to defame the Jewish citizenry prior to the Holocaust.  Equating all the families who attend mosques with the 9/11 extremists is reprehensible.

But Gingrinch wasn’t quite done.

We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.

Maybe that is the point. Suppose the Japanese decided to place a site in Hawaii as a celebration of the special relationship our countries now enjoy. Would we accept that?

Or, would we assume that anyone of Japanese ancestry should be subject to suspicion. As we did when we decided to round up all American citizens of Japanese ancestry and put them into internment camps during the Second World War.

I doubt if Newt put too much thought to the natural implications of his statements. If he did, he might realize the obvious points of comparison between his anti-Muslim rhetoric, and the respective injustices against the German Jews and the Japanese Americans.