Mosque to be Built Near Ground Zero

According to a recent Siena Research Institute poll, over half of New Yorkers polled think that the "Ground Zero Mosque" will promote racial and religious tolerance, or are open to the idea of it. Yet: 68% of Americans oppose it, despite the endorsements of New York City's mayor and the President of the United States of America. But that's not why you're wrong, America. This, however, is.


Via Tumblr editorial director TopherChris, here's a map of just how "Ground Zero" the "Ground Zero Mosque" is:

The point is, it isn't. What's more offensive: Having a....

* "Ground Zero Burger King."
* Memorial that's never happened because of hyper-capitalist conflicts.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables that profit off of cheap, China-made 9-11 memorabilia.
* Bunch of tacky souvenir tables that profit off of cheap, China-made 9-11 memorabilia when they're not selling fake Rolexes to the same Americans coming to New York, buying from them, going home, and telling New Yorkers where to put our Mosques.

or an Islamic Cultural Center with a 9/11 Memorial (more than what's actually been put to paper for an official 9/11 Memorial) two and a half blocks away?

Reminder: Muslims were victims of 9/11, too. Sorry, but it's true. And one was an NYPD cadet.

"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name"..."Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ...."

This kind of rhetoric has a strange historical antecedent in Jewish history. In the 1400s, in Spain, a movement arose that questioned the sincerity of those Jews who had previously converted to Catholicism. The profession of faith by these converts was not enough for many authorities -- they believed these ostensible Catholics still possessed the seed of Judaism, as it were, and they established the Inquisition to root out these false Christians.

over half of New Yorkers polled think that the "Ground Zero Mosque" will promote racial and religious tolerance, or are open to the idea of it

Quote:

"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name"..

I would object to this project being done anywhere in Manhattan.

when the lesson of 9/11 is the cost of tolerance

Ted Olson, Former Bush Solicitor General And Husband Of 9/11 Victim, Backs Obama On 'Ground Zero Mosque'
Updated: 08-18-10 05:08 PM

Ted Olson, former George W. Bush solicitor general, attorney behind the case against California's gay marriage ban, and husband of a woman who died aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, said Wednesday that President Obama was right about his analysis of the "Ground Zero Mosque" as a constitutional right protected by the First Amendment.

Olson's wife, conservative commentator and lawyer Barbara Olson, perished on September 11 aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that was hijacked and flown in the Pentagon.

Asked on MSNBC about his opinion on the plans to construct a 13-story Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero, Olson gave a response that served as a rather high profile departure from what has become the conservative norm on the issue.

"Well it may not make me hap-- popular with some people, but I think, probably, the president was right about this," Olson told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices, or structures, or places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing, and that we don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don't think it should be a political issue. It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue, either. I believe Gov. Christie from New Jersey said it well, that this should not be in that political, partisan marketplace."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/18/liz-cheneys-keep-america-_n_686697.html

"It is very stupid, when Republicans are poised to win an overwhelming victory in November over Democratic spending to focus attention on this issue."

You do realize that there is already a huge mosque/cultural center in Manhattan--the Islamic Cultural Center of NY (ICCNY), located at 96th street and 3rd avenue--don't you? And that one, which occupies about half a city block, cost about $70 million and was financed with money from foreign Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Libya, but mainly by Kuwait. It opened after the 1993 terrorist bombing at the WTC that killed 6 people and injured 1,042 others, and it has been open for the past 15 years without protests and howls about its existence.

It also tells me that most of the 100 million is expected to come from non US Citizens.

It opened after the 1993 terrorist bombing at the WTC that killed 6 people and injured 1,042 others, and it has been open for the past 15 years without protests and howls about its existence

Anyone here is free to donate to the Cordoba Institute. The link is here.

Talk of the Spanish Inquisition (on same link) wasn't much better. However: senior Republicans are inclined to support the mosque:

Quote:

"It is very stupid, when Republicans are poised to win an overwhelming victory in November over Democratic spending to focus attention on this issue."

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1275642&srvc=home&position=active

It also tells me that most of the 100 million is expected to come from non US Citizens, from in fact places that tolerate the existence of groups who wish to end the american way of life, from places that tolerate America only so long as we keep feeding them petro dollars.

So far, debate has been framed around whether a $100 million, 15-story Muslim community center and mosque should be built two blocks from where Islamic radicals brought down the World Trade Center. But interviews with people who know Rauf suggest that the project isn't much more than an idea and that Rauf's most controversial trait may be his ambition.

While he portrays himself as someone who runs two influential interfaith nonprofits (his Web site says he is "regarded as one of the world's most eloquent and erudite Muslim leaders"), neither have a staff, and the project that has inspired outrage hasn't even begun fundraising, said Rauf's wife and work partner, Daisy Khan.
.
.
.
Rabbi Leonard Schoolman, who hired Rauf in the late 1990s to teach about Islam at the Center for Religious Inquiry at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, and who is a strong supporter of the imam, called the project "amateur hour" and more of a publicity strategy than a reality, meant to promote the couple's interfaith work. Even with 50 media requests coming in per day, a part-time employee of the developer who owns the property has been the world's sole way of getting information in recent days, which he was sending out in occasionally snarky Tweets.

"I don't think either of them has the capacity or resources or anything else to pull this off," said Schoolman, who accompanied Rauf to a meeting with civic officials earlier in the 2000s to support the project at another location, farther uptown.

"I don't think he has a constituency in the Muslim community," said Schoolman, who has been to Masjid al Farah, the TriBeCa mosque at which Rauf has led services since 1983. "I think he's pretty much of a loner."

I think the solution might be that the property should become a homeless shelter, since there are homeless that make the Wall Street area their home. Now would that not be a feather in the cap of Islam, so to speak, if they raised money to put a homeless shelter there?

Foofie wrote:

I think the solution might be that the property should become a homeless shelter, since there are homeless that make the Wall Street area their home. Now would that not be a feather in the cap of Islam, so to speak, if they raised money to put a homeless shelter there?

The community center is essentially the Muslim version of the YMCA.