The controversy over a mosque in NYC two blocks from 911’s Ground Zero continues to boil — heated up by both genuine issues on each side of the argument and also by those who are transparently pressing hot buttons to get TV ratings or mid-term election votes.
One of the many issues at play is the issue of religious freedom. And yesterday a group of rabbis rallied in support of the mosque:
Rabbis rallied near the World Trade Center site today in support of a planned Islamic center known as the ground zero mosque.
About 20 religious leaders and activists gathered on the street in lower Manhattan today where the mosque is to be built. They said the Cordoba Initiative, the group sponsoring the cultural center, was welcome in New York.
“We need this Islamic center to preach love and respect in contrast to those who preach hate and destruction,” Rabbi Richard Jacobs of the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., told reporters.
The rabbis said controversy surrounding the project, which will include a space for prayer, is rooted in intolerance against Muslims.
“Many people still think of Muslims as terrorists,” Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, co-chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, told AOL News today in New York. “My hope is that a center like this will help people understand that not all Muslims are violent.”
Cathy Young gives her take on the issue of the mosque and religious freedom on RealClearPolitics. Here’s how she begins the read-in-full post:
While the “Ground Zero mosque” — an Islamic Center planned two blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks — has been cleared for construction by the authorities in New York, the controversy is far from over. The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative group that defines itself as championing religious tolerance (the “no comment” paradox is obvious), has gone to court to block the Cordoba House project. The mosque’s opponents are out in force making their case. They have some valid points, and the victory for Cordoba House is not quite the perfect occasion for three cheers for religious freedom. But at this point, the opposition is so tainted with intolerance and irrationality that to hand it a victory would be far worse.
Both supporters and proponents of Cordoba House see the issue in stark terms. To one side, this is a matter of religious freedom and equal treatment as this nation’s bedrock principles, a fundamentally American project opposed only by bigots who demonize all Muslims for the acts of a few terrorists. To the other side, this is about the symbolic affront of erecting an Islamic structure near a place where fanatics claiming to fight for Islam murdered nearly 3,000 people, a politically correct folly opposed only by soft-headed wimps who care about the sensitivities of Muslims but not those of Americans affected by September 11.
Legally, constitutionally, and to a large extent philosophically, the pro-mosque side is clearly in the right. And yet it isn’t quite so simple as to say that the opposition is driven solely by bigotry and fear-mongering. Symbolism and sensitivities do matter, culturally if not legally.
Go to the link to read it in its entirety.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.