Mosque to be Built Near Ground Zero

Ah, the “Ground Zero mosque.” Well, for a start, it won’t be at Ground Zero. It’ll be on Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site (from which it will not be visible), in a neighborhood ajumble with restaurants, shops (electronics, porn, you name it), churches, office cubes, and the rest of the New York mishmash.

Park51, as it is to be called, will have a large Islamic “prayer room,” which presumably qualifies as a mosque. But the rest of the building will be devoted to classrooms, an auditorium, galleries, a restaurant, a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001, and a swimming pool and gym.

Its sponsors envision something like the 92nd Street Y—a Y.M.I.A., you might say, open to all, including persons of the C. and H. persuasions.

has been the imam of a mosque in Tribeca for close to thirty years. He is the author of a book called “What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.”

He is a vice-chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. “My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists,” he wrote recently—in the Daily News, no less.

He denounces terrorism in general and the 9/11 attacks in particular, often and at length. The F.B.I. tapped him to conduct “sensitivity training” for agents and cops.

"Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would characterize as irrational or bigoted"

Before you flood the thread with any additional interminable postings

Foofie wrote:

In my opinion, a mega-mosque near Ground Zero has a "cheapening effect" on the losses of the relatives of loved ones lost on 9/11.

I think that's unfair to the Muslim New Yorkers who want to pray there. For all we know, the 9-11 attacks traumatized them every bit as much as the Christian New Yorkers and the Jewish New Yorkers. Do you know, Foofie, that there are already five Christian churches and two synagogues within two blocks of Ground Zero? Nobody demands that they be shut down. Even though Christians and Jews believe in the same god in whose name the terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, the city respects their communities' right to exercise their religion. And it's a good thing, too.

Foofie wrote:

In my opinion, a mega-mosque near Ground Zero has a "cheapening effect" on the losses of the relatives of loved ones lost on 9/11. So does gay marriage have a "cheapening effect" on the Sacrament of marriage of heterosexual couples, in my opinion.

Waa-waa-waa....

Being an atheist, you may not be aware that when you say

Quote:

Even though Christians and Jews believe in the same god in whose name the terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center

your are not correct. There are similarities, but they are not the same.

That, however, does not change what you were trying to say in your post. Tolerance is the bottom line.

Pretty good summation of your distaste for this project, firefly.

there are already five Christian churches and two synagogues within two blocks of Ground Zero? Nobody demands that they be shut down.

But you forgot to mention that your arguments have a "cheapening effect" on the US Constitution which guarantees religious freedom and equality for all..

...There's always some minority group, some little event that brings the whatever out of the woodwork to bitch and moan about the very things that these same people like to trumpet as the things that make America great.

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I am protesting because 3,000 mothers, fathers, sons and daughters were slaughtered by Muslim extremists.

What should bother American citizens more than that is that large numbers of slammites living in and around NY and NJ knew that some major terrorist attack was in the works, and nobody told anybody about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_debate

Quote:

On September 6, 2001, a freshman from a class of Pakistani immigrants at New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn was overheard by his English teacher, Antoinette DiLorenzo, to say that the two World Trade Center towers "won't be standing there next week." After DiLorenzo reported the incident on September 13, the youth and his older brother were questioned by the FBI and local police. According to police, the youth admitted to making the comment but he and his brother said he had been kidding.[72]

Ain't that just like Gunga, the slimy little bastard.