Merged Two Mosques to be built near Ground Zero

I responded to this issue in a similar thread over in the 9/11 subforum; I'd like to post it here as well because I think it applies.

Sabrina said:
Look, I'll be honest.

I'm not too keen on the whole idea, but as someone else on here said, that's mainly my emotional reaction. My rational side reminds me that I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and fight for the ideals it espouses, if need be offering up my life for said ideals, so my emotional reaction upon reflection seems rather petty. Therefore, I go with my rational side.

Quite frankly I am of the opinion that most of the people who oppose the idea of the mosque/cultural center being so close to Ground Zero are letting their emotional reactions rule rather than letting themselves calm down and think about it logically. I would imagine that the poll showing 68% of Americans being against the mosque/cultural center deliberately phrased the questions asked so as to incite an emotional response. But I would also hope that the majority of people, after giving it some thought, would come to realize that their initial, emotional reaction, while allowed, is in fact petty and not in keeping with the tenets this nation was founded on. If they were aware of all the facts, among them that there are other mosques close to Ground Zero, that there are strip clubs and gay bars close to Ground Zero, and that there are other religious buildings from various religions near Ground Zero, they might come to realize that their visceral reaction to the idea seems rather hypocritical. Ground Zero is not hallowed ground. I'm probably going to get lambasted for saying that, but if you think about it, it is true. Yes, nearly three thousand people died there, but people die everywhere, often from circumstances as horrific as what happened on 9/11. By that logic, the entirety of the world should be considered hallowed ground.

Perhaps it comes from my own religious background, but I cannot bring myself to blame an entire religion for the actions of a few members. The vast majority of the practitioners of Islam are by and large peaceful people who merely wish to live their lives and practice their faith without harrassment or fear. From what I can tell, that's the way most people who follow some sort of faith, or don't even follow any faith at all, feel as well. I cannot and WILL not understand why people can assign blame to an entire religion without bothering to make the effort to differentiate why some members of a faith feel the way they do. A tiny percentage of Muslims were responsible for 9/11. Think about it; out of a religion that boasts over 1 billion people (IIRC), there were, at best twenty to twenty-five people who planned and executed the plan for 9/11. Do I blame those people? Hell. Yes. Do I blame every other person who practices Islam? Hell. No. I don't even blame the people who celebrated in various Middle Eastern countries upon hearing of the tragedy, because they did not participate. I do hold them in some contempt for being so uncaring about their fellow man, but I do not blame them, especially when I consider the fact that by and large America is considered to be extremely arrogant by the rest of the world, and I can see the arrogance for myself simply by living here. We are a proud people, but in my opinion we have pretty much forgotten our humble beginnings. Our forefathers came to this country to escape religious persecution; our Constitution is founded upon that very idea, among others. I cannot and WILL not bring myself to spit upon the principles we fought the Revolutionary War to uphold.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but like the saying goes, "opinions are like ***holes, everyone's got one." My opinion is that there is no logical excuse for the emotional reaction from the majority of Americans upon hearing about this particular issue, and it is also my opinion that, upon reflection, the majority of Americans will come to realize this and will cease their opposition to the idea. There will likely be protests; I don't deny that. Some people might even be hurt. But ultimately the furor over this will die down, and New York will continue on much as before, reflecting the hodgepodge of nations and religions it has always reflected. Building this mosque/cultural center, whichever you want to call it, will not mean that we are letting the terrorists win. What it will mean is that we are upholding the principles laid out in the Constitution correctly. So if you're vigorously protesting the idea, I suggest you pause and take a moment to reflect on just WHY you are protesting the idea. If there is no logical reason for your opposition, then perhaps the best thing is to recognize that your emotional response is not the correct response. My $0.02 American; take it or leave it.
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I don't recall ever using the word "bigot". IMHO people who are against it are being emotional and forgetting that our government, per our own, Constitution is supposed to remain neutral when it comes to religion, and are letting religious tolerance slip from their minds: that does not mean "bigot". As I said, it's a knee-jerk reaction.

Also, I think that most political figures, on all sides of the policital spectrum, are using this as a way, as I said, to keep their jobs and get "their side" to win. But really, that's just a part of politics.

The simple fact is that the government, therefore any vote, cannot step in and say "NO NO NO", as long as it fits local zoning laws.
 
amb said:
Did you not see the 61% of the public against it? It is America we are discussing? Not Mozambique or some other dictatorship.
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In the United States, the Constitution trumps public opinion. Case law clearly and repeatedly states that the First Amendment means that the government cannot treat various religions differently. So, unless the U.S. passes a new constitutional amendment repealing part of the First Amendment, there really is nothing to debate. The government, and by extension President Obama, is forbidden to interfere in the matter.
 
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amb said:
The latest polling in the States says that 31% of the population think Obama is a muslim. He isn't. But if he gets re-elected after one term it will be very surprising, even if he's against Sarah Palin.
Watch the carnage at the forthcoming congressional elections. Obama should have said he was against the building of this mosque from day one. 61 % of American are. Only 21% are for it. The rest don't know/care.
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So you're back to the presidential election 2 years from now. That's a long time to keep people angry over one little issue.

And, yes, people are stupid, but that's hardly Obama's fault, is it?
 
amb said:
Is this the very same iman who has not ruled out accepting money for the project even from terrorist states such as Iran? Or from Saudi Arabia? [which is a dictatorship]
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You're not even trying to be intellectually honest at this point. Imam Feisal said he's open to foreign donations, not that he's ready to accept money from the Saudi or Iranian government.

So, swing and a miss for you. Again. Want to give another go?

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Elind said:
Sorry, I don't have time to keep up with all these heartfelt opinions and allegations of bigotry.
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You don't really have to. What you could do, however, is be the first to provide anything resembling a rational argument against the building of Park51. I'm willing to wager you can't.

Elind said:
Here is a link to some Muslim opinions (American Muslim, I add). Not all are as in favor of this project as are many posters here.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/19/1784182/south-florida-muslims-weigh-in.html
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This is hilarious. You want to play that game? Okay: 9/11 families who support the building of Park51, mother of pregnant daughter who died on 9/11 supporting Park51, another widower of the 9/11 attacks says it's okay to build.

As it turns out those posters claiming the 9/11 victims' families are against this aren't completely accurate.

Care to try again?
 
Elind said:
Sorry, I don't have time to keep up with all these heartfelt opinions and allegations of bigotry.
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I will agree that labeling everyone who is against the community center mosque a bigot is painting with too broad of a brush. On the other hand, the recent Time Magazine poll[/url] says that about 30 percent of Americans believe that Muslims should not be eligible to sit on the Supreme Court or to run for president. So pretty close to half of the opponents are very clearly bigots of the first water.
 
amb said:
This is from the Washington Post...........A new Time-SRBI poll found that 61% of Americans opposed building the center. Nearly twice as many people said the center, and the mosque inside it, would be an insult to 9/11 victims than said it would be a symbol of religious tolerance.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, facing a stiff re-election challemge, came out against the project after his Republican rival Sharron Angle pressed him on the issue.
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Wait... 61% oppose it, and twice as many, a whopping 122%, said it was an insult?

Either you´re a shameless liar who needs remedial lessons in making up statistics, or terminally gullible.
 
Something else... a couple of questions for amb and all the others who keep trotting out "public opinion" as a reason to piss on the Bill of Rights:

Suppose I could show you a poll that said 70% of all Whites in the South oppose civil rights for Blacks, would you argue that these civil rights for Blacks should be abolished? If not, why not?

Suppose I could show you a poll that said 70% of all Democrats oppose voting rights for Republicans, do you think Republicans should lose their voting rights? If not, why not?

Suppose I could show you a poll that said 70% of the world population thought the US should surrender its self-governance and return to being a British colony, would you argue that this should be done? If not, why not?
 
Chaos said:
Suppose I could show you a poll that said 70% of all Whites in the South oppose civil rights for Blacks, would you argue that these civil rights for Blacks should be abolished? If not, why not?
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Why can't those black people be sensitive about the white people's hatred of them? It's just not fair!
 
amb said:
This is from the Washington Post...........A new Time-SRBI poll found that 61% of Americans opposed building the center. Nearly twice as many people said the center, and the mosque inside it, would be an insult to 9/11 victims than said it would be a symbol of religious tolerance.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, facing a stiff re-election challemge, came out against the project after his Republican rival Sharron Angle pressed him on the issue.
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Chaos said:
Wait... 61% oppose it, and twice as many, a whopping 122%, said it was an insult?

Either you´re a shameless liar who needs remedial lessons in making up statistics, or terminally gullible.
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You have misread the sentence. "Nearly twice as many people said the center, and the mosque inside it, would be an insult to 9/11 victims than said it would be a symbol of religious tolerance. The figures are 44% for the first group and 23% for the second group. Source: http://www.srbi.com/Religion_Poll.html
 
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i really don't give a **** what rednecks in Texas, Mississipi, and Missouri think about a mosque in New York City.
 
elbe said:
Why can't those black people be sensitive about the white people's hatred of them? It's just not fair!
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I bet I can also find interviews with some blacks who think things are fine the way they are and that those demanding civil rights are just causing unnecessary trouble.
 
GreNME said:
I bet I can also find interviews with some blacks who think things are fine the way they are and that those demanding civil rights are just causing unnecessary trouble.
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I wouldn't be surprised. A don't rock the boat mentality can be useful when an alternative is being killed or imprisoned.
 
Forgive me if this is a redundant post but it is that important:

There's a timeline of the events leading up to this protest in Salon.com

How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began
A viciously anti-Muslim blogger, the New York Post and the right-wing media machine: How it all went down

Here's the original Dec 09 NYTs article:

Muslim Prayers and Renewal Near Ground Zero
The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”

“We want to push back against the extremists,” added Imam Feisal, 61.

Although organizers have sought to avoid publicizing their project because they say plans are too preliminary, it has drawn early encouragement from city officials and the surrounding neighborhood.
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Even Dr Laura praised the center on Fox's O'Reilly Factor! no less.
Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."
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But from there a right wing fanatic who writes the blog, Atlas Shrugs, went on a crusade:
The New York Post, meanwhile, runs a story under the inaccurate headline, "Panel Approves 'WTC' Mosque." Geller is less subtle, titling her post that day, "Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction." She writes on her Atlas Shrugs blog, "This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem." (To get an idea of where Geller is coming from, she once suggested that Malcolm X was Obama's real father. Seriously.)
May 7, 2010: Geller's group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launches "Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!" (SIOA 's associate director is Robert Spencer, who makes his living writing and speaking about the evils of Islam.) Geller posts the names and contact information for the mayor and members of the community board, encouraging people to write. The board chair later reports getting "hundreds and hundreds" of calls and e-mails from around the world.
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Wow, just wow!
 
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Yeah, I've only been posting that Salon link for a day or two already...
 
GreNME said:
Yeah, I've only been posting that Salon link for a day or two already...
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I figured I wasn't the first to find it, but didn't have time to search the thread.

So has there been much comment on this rather important piece of the story?
 
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