...I guess I may as well jump in.
The “Ground Zero Mosque”:
1. Is over two long city blocks from Ground Zero (six normal-sized city blocks),
2. Is farther away from Ground Zero than the New York Dolls Gentleman’s club, and another already-existing mosque,
3. Is not and will not be visible from Ground Zero,
4. Is not a mosque, but a Muslim cultural center containing a mosque, and also a library, a culinary school, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a restaurant, and a performance theater. It is all open to the public,
5. Is headed by a man who the Bush administration sent to the Middle East TWICE to represent American Islam to the Middle East, and who delivered the eulogy at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, an American-Jewish reporter who was murdered by the Taliban in 2002. In that eulogy, he said, “We are here to assert the Islamic conviction of the moral equivalency of our Abrahamic faiths. If to be a Jew means to say with all one's heart, mind and soul…hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one…If to be a Christian is to love the Lord our God with all of my heart, mind and soul, and to love for my fellow human being what I love for myself, then not only am I a Christian, but I have always been one...”
6. Is being built on private land, by a private organization, and is thus completely protected from government intervention (which raises the question of why the Republican Party has made it an unofficial centerpiece of their November campaign),
7. Contains a memorial to the victims of 9/11, among whom were many American Muslims.
So why are we still talking about this?
Two final thoughts:
1. Has the Republican Party officially decided that scared white people are the ticket to future election victories?
2. The anti-Mosque Movement is sure giving plenty of ammunition to communist propagandists who talk about the upper classes distracting the masses from the power of capital with fake scandals.
Hat tip: Alvin Shim, Micah Schuurman, Andrew Knapp.
Further reading:
'Ground Zero' Imam: 'I Am a Jew, I Have Always Been One'
Fact-checking the 'Ground Zero mosque' debate
How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began
9/11 Memorial Pledged as Part of Mosque Plan
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