Merged Obama enters GZ Mosque debate

[Ladewig]

I think you would still be upset if Fred Phelps was going to build a new church next door to you, right? Perhaps you would even hold some signs outside of the planned site protesting him. Maybe you would hope that public opinion and media pressure (Okay, bad example, this would never work on Fred Phelps) would convince him to build his church elsewhere.

Bad example. I personally would welcome the pinhead Phelps. I think it would be hysterical to live next door to someone as bat **** crazy as that. I am not gay, but I would be holding gay-pride parties at my house every weekend. I'd be serving soft drinks to the protesters who showed up outside of his church. It'd be fun for me.

Pat Roberston moving in. I wouldn't be happy about it, but if he legally acquired the land and met all building and zoning requirements, I would not protest his right to build a church next to me. While I am left-leaning, I do have a bit of a libertarian streak in me when it comes to property rights.

In any case, the Ground Zero mosque protesters are not saying that no house of worship should be built there - only that an Islamic house of worship shouldn't be built there. As long as a religious congregation obeys the law, then I believe it should be treated exactly the same as any other religious congregation. There is no sect, denomination, or religion to which I would say "you shouldn't move in next to me, but those other religious folks may."

 

[eeyore1954]

Only when partisan rabble-rousers engage in ad hominem attacks against brown people they don't like.

Feisal Abdul Rauf is brown? Or is he brown by default since Cirero said something bad about him and we know Cicero only says bad things about brown people? Or does he work for UPS?

 

[Cicero]

My mistake. Clearly, you had the noblest of intentions when you started a thread to smear a guy who had the audacity to exercise his freedom of religion in a place bigots don't approve of.

Don't you think Rauf smeared himself when he elected not to be a conscientious landlord? Why do you feel it is OK for Rauf and Daisy to exercise their freedom to take advantage of their tenants in a manner that even you would not approve of if you lived there?

 

[eeyore1954]

I'm trying to find the part in the Constitution that says if you're a bad landlord you lose your First Amendment rights, but no luck.

Cicero, can you help me?

The first amendment does not guarantee that someone can completely disregard building codes and be allowed to build elsewhere or modify elsewhere.

Although I doubt if anything in the other building in question has been so bad. I am pretty sure the majority of buildings in the area have some violations.

 

[Cicero]

No. I personally cannot stand Pat Robertson. The only preacher I hate more than him is Fred Phelps. But even if Fred Phelps were shown to beat his children, smoke pot, and steal cars, I would still defend his right to preach his (stupid, stupid) message in public. His committing crimes does not abrogate his First Amendment rights to assembly and religion.

Who is denying Rauf any of the Bill of Rights? He appears to be interested in a compromise of some sort. If he doesn't decide to build the mosque at ground zero will you and others maintain that his rights were violated?

 

[Neally]

As long as a religious congregation obeys the law, then I believe it should be treated exactly the same as any other religious congregation. There is no sect, denomination, or religion to which I would say "you shouldn't move in next to me, but those other religious folks may."

This situation has happened before as previously mentioned. Jews didn't want the Catholics building near Auschwitz. The church agreed to remove the convent but leave behind a cross. I'm thinking some similar type of compromise should be reached.

 

[Cicero]

Has any reliable journal bothered to investigate this and determine whether the situation is really as that rag says it is?

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/14/ground-zero-mosque-imam-a-slumlord/

But according to ANTPogo it wouldn't matter if Rauf & Daisy were the equivalent of Frank Palazzolo because it doesn't have anything to do with his ground zero mosque project......Or does it?


"And you know what? I bet el-Gamal did want to build condos! Then he figured out that he could never hope to sell them. So el-Gamal hooked up with Feisal Rauf to find financing to build something else: mosque, synagogue, multiplex cinema, driving range, whatever.

But here’s the problem. The more I read about Feisal Rauf, the more I see a very dangerous kind of man … no, not the Islamic extremist kind of dangerous … but rather the kind of guy who can convincingly say, “$100-million? That’s nothing! I have a cousin in Abu Dhabi who could write a check for $100-million himself! Don’t worry about anything, leave it to me, I’ll get the money, that’s the easy part. You get the zoning rights, we’ll buy you out, all cash, easiest money you ever made.” The streets of New York are littered with the carcasses of dead developers who met and believed the Feisal Raufs of this world …."

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-is-the-ground-zero-mosque-a-publicity-stunt/

 

[thaiboxerken]

I do find the accusations more plausible than not, and if true Rauf deserves every criticism any slumlord deserves. But why are we even talking about it?

Because the bigots had to dig out some sort of non-bigot reason to oppose the building of the recreation center.

 

[Taarkin]

Wow, how did David Frum manage to wiretap Rauf's office? We're lucky that he's a Bond villain who monologues his evil plans out loud like that.

 

[Cicero]

Because the bigots had to dig out some sort of non-bigot reason to oppose the building of the recreation center.

All dissent to the "recreation center" is "bigoted" even when it isn't. OK.

 

[A'isha]

This situation has happened before as previously mentioned. Jews didn't want the Catholics building near Auschwitz. The church agreed to remove the convent but leave behind a cross. I'm thinking some similar type of compromise should be reached.

Yes, it has happened before, but not in the way you think.

In 1984, Cardinal Macharski, Archbishop of Krakow, established the Carmelite convent outside Auschwitz. It wasn't a location for general Catholic worship, but solely and specifically for purpose of praying for the souls of those murdered there. Many Jews did not like the idea of Catholics coming in and basically claiming religious jurisdiction over the dead of Auschwitz, especially since the Roman Catholic Church had a long history of anti-Semitism and forced conversions, and officially cooperated with the Nazis during the war (albeit mostly unwillingly, and a lot of individual Catholics resisted Hitler's regime). They especially didn't like the fact that the Convent building was actually part of the camp complex, albeit on the far periphery of it, and was used as a storage location for Zyklon-B used at the camp during the war.

As a result of the protests, Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Macharski agreed to replace the Convent with a "center of information, education, meeting, and prayer outside the area of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps", where the nuns would move to. It took a while for the new complex to be built and for the nuns to finally agree to abandon the old location and go to the new one.

The Center for Dialogue and Prayer in Oswiecm is still there. It's a self-described "Catholic institution", a center for "reflection, education, sharing and prayer." It is located about 900 feet from the entrance to the Auschwitz death camp.

For comparison purposes, the proposed Park51 site is about 400 feet from the very edge of Ground Zero.

So, if you think the organizers of the Park51 site should follow the model of what happened at Auschwitz, which is to establish a religious center to promote reflection, education, sharing, and prayer just a few hundred feet from the edge of the location where such tragic events happened, then you'll be happy to note that that's exactly what they're doing.

 

[A'isha]

"And you know what? I bet el-Gamal did want to build condos! Then he figured out that he could never hope to sell them. So el-Gamal hooked up with Feisal Rauf to find financing to build something else: mosque, synagogue, multiplex cinema, driving range, whatever.

But here’s the problem. The more I read about Feisal Rauf, the more I see a very dangerous kind of man … no, not the Islamic extremist kind of dangerous … but rather the kind of guy who can convincingly say, “$100-million? That’s nothing! I have a cousin in Abu Dhabi who could write a check for $100-million himself! Don’t worry about anything, leave it to me, I’ll get the money, that’s the easy part. You get the zoning rights, we’ll buy you out, all cash, easiest money you ever made.” The streets of New York are littered with the carcasses of dead developers who met and believed the Feisal Raufs of this world …."

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-is-the-ground-zero-mosque-a-publicity-stunt/

Additionally from Cicero's link,

I have no idea whether the el-Gamals were praying men before they met Feisal Rauf.

Hmm...

The concept was first broached publicly late last year by a group of backers that included Feisal Abdul Rauf, an imam who leads a small Manhattan mosque not far from the World Trade Center, his wife, Daisy Khan, who heads a Muslim nonprofit group, and a real estate investor who is a member of Rauf's congregation, Sharif El-Gamal.

Together, they outlined a plan to demolish a pair of linked buildings and replace them with a tower that would hold a theater, a health club, a performing arts center, a culinary school and a mosque.

...

In his few public statements over the past few weeks, [el-Gamal] has portrayed himself, rather than Rauf, as the key force behind the proposed center, and created a new nonprofit group to raise the estimated $100 million needed for construction.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-09-08-nyc-mosque_N.htm?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+(News+-+Top+Stories)

In other words, instead of being just some random, possibly non-religious developer who was desperate to build ANYTHING other than condos and turned to Rauf because Rauf knew where to get all the money, El-Gamal was a worshipper at Rauf's mosque who wanted to build a Muslim community center with his Imam's interfaith group and established his own non-profit organization to raise the needed funds for it. I think that pretty much sums up how knowledgeable Frum appears to be regarding all this, and how seriously we can take his utter fiction about Rauf and the El-Gamals.

 

[thaiboxerken]

All dissent to the "recreation center" is "bigoted" even when it isn't. OK.

When the non-bigoted reasons come weeks after their declared opposition, that is exactly the case.

 

[Cicero]

When the non-bigoted reasons come weeks after their declared opposition, that is exactly the case.

The lawsuit was filed Monday, September 13, 2010. Does this mean that it is too late to be a bona fide story about Rauf & Daisy because they are considering building a "recreation center?"


N.J. town files lawsuit against imam behind controversial mosque near Ground Zero

"The suit, filed today in state Superior Court in Jersey City, identifies Rauf as the sole officer of Sage Development LLC, a company based at his home address in North Bergen and listed as the owner of the two buildings. The suit also alleges that Sage’s corporate status was revoked by the state in March 2005, for its failure to file annual reports."

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/union_city_sues_landlord_of_ap.html

 

[A'isha]

The lawsuit was filed Monday, September 13, 2010. Does this mean that it is too late to be a bona fide story about Rauf & Daisy because they are considering building a "recreation center?"

No, but that doesn't make it any less irrelevant.

From your link:

Landlord-tenant disputes are nothing new, even those with municipalities entering the fray.

...

Albiez said the suit was unrelated to the mosque controversy.

If Rauf is a bad landlord, he's a bad landlord, and needs to either own up to that and fix it, or bear the penalties, legally and monetarily.

But none of that has anything whatsoever to do with Park51 and whether it should or should not be built. In short, it's a textbook ad hominem.

 

[Cicero]

For comparison purposes, the proposed Park51 site is about 400 feet from the very edge of Ground Zero.
[/I]

Better perspective.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Better perspective.

Right next to the stripper club.

 

[Cicero]

No, but that doesn't make it any less irrelevant.

From your link:



If Rauf is a bad landlord, he's a bad landlord, and needs to either own up to that and fix it, or bear the penalties, legally and monetarily.

But none of that has anything whatsoever to do with Park51 and whether it should or should not be built. In short, it's a textbook ad hominem.

But the thread I started is about the lawsuit filed against Rauf's properties in New Jersey. The mods merged the threads. Complain to them that his indifference to being a slumlord has nothing to do with his right to build a mosque at ground zero.

 

[Cicero]

Right next to the stripper club.

That's a "recreation center."

 

[A'isha]

Better perspective.

[qimg]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b56/Polythemus/groundzero.jpg[/qimg]

The "Catholic institution" for prayer (where the Carmelite nuns that were supposedly removed actually went), and the main part of the Auschwitz death camp.

But the thread I started is about the lawsuit filed against Rauf's properties in New Jersey. The mods merged the threads. Complain to them that his indifference to being a slumlord has nothing to do with his right to build a mosque at ground zero.

Then why do you care? You have over 7000 posts here at the JREF boards.

How many other lawsuits against "slumlords" have you posted about?