Across the US, Mosque Projects Meet Opposition

[Trolldor]

Yes, well, I suppose it is fucking hell when you're having your stitches torn by a man three times your age whom your father promised you to.

[sandinista]

about as much hell as being anally raped by a priest if thats where your going. Getting into a whats worse islam or bloody christians or jews...LAME. All can be done away with.

[Trolldor]

Oh! I get it!

Because you're not affected it's somehow not relevant. Yes, nevermind the millions of girls abused and beaten as part of religious doctrine. Nevermind that this is done not just with the knowledge but the active support of their society. Nevermind that they are traded as commodities. That all happens in the East so what relevance does that bear on the spread of Islam and the increasing number of radicals in the West?

What's important is that you feel comfortable. Here's a seat, have a cup of tea.

[sandinista]

So...where did I say islam wasn't relevant? Put words in peoples mouths much.

here's a seat, have a shit.

[Trolldor]

I wonder if you've ever read what you write?

[charlou]

lolno.
Politcians have always been arbitrarily deciding what buildings can and cannot be built.

Not arbitrarily, as their decisions are governed by legislation and building codes. Doing so based on the religiosity of the applicant goes against the US constitution, doesn't it?

[Trolldor]

A brief analysis of US history demonstrates just how 'malleable' certain Government Departments can be when a little present is shoved their way. It is and always has been arbitrary.

As for being in breach of the US constitution - I don't know. It's certainly not breaching religious freedom as there are already mosques in the area and nothing is stopping them from practicing their religion.

[sandinista]

I wonder if you've ever read what you write?

hmmm, funny, I was wondering if you knew how to read.

[Meekychuppet]

It is not as though this is being built on the ashes of the Twin Towers. From what I hear it is a pretty substantial walk away, maybe 45-60 minutes.

[Jay G]

It is not as though this is being built on the ashes of the Twin Towers. From what I hear it is a pretty substantial walk away, maybe 45-60 minutes.

Depending on which direction you walk, a 45 minute walk from ground zero would put you, within about 10 minutes into the Hudson River. The only direction you can walk from there is north and 45-60 minutes from ground zero would probably put you in Central Park, or even north of there.

I think this mosque is more like 5 - 10 minutes walking distance.

[Robert_S]

It is not as though this is being built on the ashes of the Twin Towers. From what I hear it is a pretty substantial walk away, maybe 45-60 minutes.

Depending on which direction you walk, a 45 minute walk from ground zero would put you, within about 10 minutes into the Hudson River. The only direction you can walk from there is north and 45-60 minutes from ground zero would probably put you in Central Park, or even north of there.

I think this mosque is more like 5 - 10 minutes walking distance.

Cordoba House, also referred to as the "Ground Zero Mosque" and "Park51", is a planned $100 million, 13-story, glass and steel Islamic community center, which will include a mosque, a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool, a restaurant, and a bookstore.[5] The proposed community center will replace an existing 1850s Italianate building that was damaged in the September 11 attacks. It is to be built two blocks (less than 600 feet, or 180 meters) from Ground Zero in New York City. An anticipated 1,000 to 2,000 Muslims will pray at it every Friday, once it is built.[6][7][8]

It's a fucking stupid and insensitive idea.

[Coito ergo sum]

Mau-Mauing the Mosque
The dispute over the "Ground Zero mosque" is an object lesson in how not to resist intolerance.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 9, 2010, at 2:07 PM ET

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
The dispute over the construction of an Islamic center at "Ground Zero" in Lower Manhattan has now sunk to a level of stupidity that really does shame the memory and the victims of that terrible day in September 2001. One might think that a mosque or madrassa was being proposed in the place of the fallen towers themselves or atop the atomized ingredients of what was once a mass grave. (In point of fact, the best we have been able to do with the actual site, after almost a decade, is to create a huge, noisy, and dirty pit with almost no visible architectural progress. Perhaps resentment at the relative speed of the proposed Cordoba House is a subconscious by-product of embarrassment at this local and national disgrace.)
I don't like anything much about the Cordoba Initiative or the people who run it. The supposed imam of the place, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is on record as saying various shady and creepy things about the original atrocity. Shortly after 9/11, he told 60 Minutes, "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened." He added, "In the most direct sense, Osama Bin Laden is made in the USA." More recently, he has declined to identify the racist and totalitarian Hamas party as being guilty of the much less severe designation of terrorist. We are all familiar by now with the peddlers of such distortions and euphemisms and evasions, many of them repeated by half-baked secular and Christian spokesmen. A widespread cultural cringe impels many people to the half-belief that it's better to accommodate "moderates" like Rauf as a means of diluting the challenge of the real thing. So for the sake of peace and quiet, why not have Comedy Central censor itself or the entire U.S. press refuse to show the Danish cartoons?

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This kind of capitulation needs to be fought consistently. But here is exactly how not to resist it. Take, for example, the widely publicized opinion of Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Supporting those relatives of the 9/11 victims who have opposed Cordoba House, he drew a crass analogy with the Final Solution and said that, like Holocaust survivors, "their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted." This cracked tune has been taken up by Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who additionally claim to be ventriloquizing the emotions of millions of Americans who did not suffer bereavement. It has also infected the editorial pages of the normally tougher-minded Weekly Standard, which called on President Obama to denounce the Cordoba House on the grounds that a 3-to-1 majority of Americans allegedly find it "offensive."
Where to start with this part-pathetic and part-sinister appeal to demagogy? To begin with, it borrows straight from the playbook of Muslim cultural blackmail. Claim that something is "offensive," and it is as if the assertion itself has automatically become an argument. You are even allowed to admit, as does Foxman, that the ground for taking offense is "irrational and bigoted." But, hey—why think when you can just feel? The supposed "feelings" of the 9/11 relatives have already deprived us all of the opportunity to see the real-time footage of the attacks—a huge concession to the general dulling of what ought to be a sober and continuous memory of genuine outrage. Now extra privileges have to be awarded to an instant opinion-poll majority. Not only that, the president is urged to use his high office to decide questions of religious architecture!
Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment or the principle of the "wall of separation." In his incoherent statement, Foxman made the suggestion that it might be all right if the Cordoba House was built "a mile away." He appears to be unaware that an old building at the site is already housing overflow from the nearby Masjid al-Farah mosque.
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I notice that even the choice of the name Cordoba has offended some Christian opponents of the scheme. This wonderful city in Andalusia, after the Muslim conquest of southern Spain, was indeed one of the centers of the lost Islamic caliphate that today's jihadists have sworn in blood to restore. And after the Catholic reconquista, it was also one of the places purged of all Arab and Jewish influence by the founders of the Inquisition. But in the interval between these two imperialisms it was also the site of an astonishing cultural synthesis, best associated with the names of Averroes ibn-Rushd and Moses Maimonides. (The finest recent book on the subject is María Rosa Menocal's The Ornament of the World.) Here was a flourishing of philosophy and medicine and architecture that saw, among other things, the recovery of the works of Aristotle. We need not automatically assume the good faith of those who have borrowed this noble name for a project in lower Manhattan. One would want assurances, also, about the transparency of its funding and the content of its educational programs. But the way to respond to such overtures is by critical scrutiny and engagement, not cheap appeals to parochialism, victimology, and unreason.

http://www.slate.com/id/2263334/

[Coito ergo sum]

It is not as though this is being built on the ashes of the Twin Towers. From what I hear it is a pretty substantial walk away, maybe 45-60 minutes.

Depending on which direction you walk, a 45 minute walk from ground zero would put you, within about 10 minutes into the Hudson River. The only direction you can walk from there is north and 45-60 minutes from ground zero would probably put you in Central Park, or even north of there.

I think this mosque is more like 5 - 10 minutes walking distance.

Manhattan is about 2 miles wide (and narrower down at the WTC site), so if one is walking at about 15 minutes per mile (a walking pace), one would be well into New Jersey in 45 minutes walking up to the Holland tunnell and proceeding west, and 2-3 miles into the Atlantic walking East (with a deep sea diving suit)

If one went north.... one could walk the three miles from the WTC site to the Empire State Building in 45 minutes, no problem. In another 15 minutes, for a total of 60, one could make the four miles to central park, just walk right up the Avenue of Americas.

The proposed Mosque is 200 meters from "ground zero" as it has come to be called.

The folks that are organizing it are skanks and scumbags, supporters of Hamas and terrorism, and they wish to spread their filthy belief system in the US. That's what they're doing by building this bullshit "cultural center."

Unfortunately, in this case, if they comply with building and zoning laws, they have as much right to build their hate-mongering, crap-spewing den of garbage as anyone else. I only hope they are investigated and audited by the IRS to ensure full compliance with all nonprofit rules and applicable Revenue Code provisions, as well as a nice healthy investigation by the FBI, NSA and CIA to root out any aid and assistance they may be giving to terrorist organizations. If it's discovered they are doing anything illegal, seize the place and sell it.

I've heard the words of this Feisal fuckface and his monstrous Cordoba Initiative. I hope New Yorkers picket the hell out of this new mosque and demonstrate against the hate-filled mythology being fertilized within its putrid walls.

Under no circumstances should any "call to prayer" be allowed to be audible above the level of street noise. To the extent that horrid noise becomes a nuisance to those who live in the area, like an annoying party and over-loud music in a kid's car, they should be shut right down.

[Coito ergo sum]

[JimC]

It is not as though this is being built on the ashes of the Twin Towers. From what I hear it is a pretty substantial walk away, maybe 45-60 minutes.

Depending on which direction you walk, a 45 minute walk from ground zero would put you, within about 10 minutes into the Hudson River. The only direction you can walk from there is north and 45-60 minutes from ground zero would probably put you in Central Park, or even north of there.

I think this mosque is more like 5 - 10 minutes walking distance.

Manhattan is about 2 miles wide (and narrower down at the WTC site), so if one is walking at about 15 minutes per mile (a walking pace), one would be well into New Jersey in 45 minutes walking up to the Holland tunnell and proceeding west, and 2-3 miles into the Atlantic walking East (with a deep sea diving suit)

If one went north.... one could walk the three miles from the WTC site to the Empire State Building in 45 minutes, no problem. In another 15 minutes, for a total of 60, one could make the four miles to central park, just walk right up the Avenue of Americas.

The proposed Mosque is 200 meters from "ground zero" as it has come to be called.

The folks that are organizing it are skanks and scumbags, supporters of Hamas and terrorism, and they wish to spread their filthy belief system in the US. That's what they're doing by building this bullshit "cultural center."

Unfortunately, in this case, if they comply with building and zoning laws, they have as much right to build their hate-mongering, crap-spewing den of garbage as anyone else. I only hope they are investigated and audited by the IRS to ensure full compliance with all nonprofit rules and applicable Revenue Code provisions, as well as a nice healthy investigation by the FBI, NSA and CIA to root out any aid and assistance they may be giving to terrorist organizations. If it's discovered they are doing anything illegal, seize the place and sell it.

I've heard the words of this Feisal fuckface and his monstrous Cordoba Initiative. I hope New Yorkers picket the hell out of this new mosque and demonstrate against the hate-filled mythology being fertilized within its putrid walls.

Under no circumstances should any "call to prayer" be allowed to be audible above the level of street noise. To the extent that horrid noise becomes a nuisance to those who live in the area, like an annoying party and over-loud music in a kid's car, they should be shut right down.

I agree 100 %

This is a different matter to the general issue of mosque building in the west, and could only be a calculated, cruel and hateful gesture of contempt. Fuck 'em, and fuck cultural sensitivity (in this particular case) as well...