Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove the construction of the Islamic mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero. The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission voted to allow the mosque project to proceed. Soon after Mayor Bloomberg came out in support of the project, citing religious tolerance and freedom of speech:
Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.
For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime – as important a test – and it is critically important that we get it right.
Then on Friday President Obama decided to chime in:
At a dinner Friday celebrating the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Mr. Obama said Muslims have a right, as a matter of religious freedom, to build a religious center near Ground Zero. “Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country,” he said to applause.
But maybe he regretted it? Because on Saturday he seemed a bit sheepish:
On Saturday, the president said, “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque” near Ground Zero, he told reporters during a visit to the Gulf Coast. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding.”
Later Saturday, White House spokesman Bill Burton said the president wasn’t backtracking. “The president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night,” he said. He had no further comment on Sunday.
Perhaps his Democrat colleagues — between their facepalms and eye-rolls — decided to ring up the White House to thank the president for making their already contested re-elections even more difficult. Republicans have already gone on the attack about this. In a time when many Democrats are already distancing themselves from the president, I’m certain this latest incident is going to push more of them away…
The bottom line is that the majority of Americans are tolerant of Islam and any other religion (or even atheism). Nobody disputes the freedom of religion. However, hand-in-hand with this freedom is the respect we have for one another and each other’s beliefs. Erecting a 15-story mosque to overshadow Ground Zero is in very poor taste and highly insensitive and, may I add, blatantly disrespectful. Simply put, the planners of this mosque are taking advantage of the freedoms offered by this great nation. Don’t be fooled, they are not doing this in the name of religious tolerance or cultural acceptance; they are doing this to build a monument to stir the sentiments of 9/11. It is an in-your-face, nyah-nyah-nyah move to pronounce the dominance of Islam, right smack in the middle of the city with 3,000 crying souls.
It’s a shame that many politicians and even our own president cannot muster the courage to disapprove this construction. Sure, they’re more than welcomed to cite the legality of the project. But why can’t they have the decency to protest on grounds of sensitivity and morality. It is legal, but that doesn’t mean it is right.
