MOSQUE CONTROVERSY.

No need for a Mosque...

A meeting by religious leaders of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths in Washington yesterday had many people scratching their heads. The objective of that meeting was to condemn the hatred based on the "anti Muslim frenzy" swirling around the nation, due to the fact that a mosque was being planned by Muslims near the World Trade Center, which was demolished by fanatics of that sect.

The meeting held at the National Press Club was attended by prominent people, among whom were Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who was the main backer of the proposed plan, and had previously written an opinion piece in the New York Times, published Tuesday, saying that he would not back down with the plan; "we cede the discourse and, essentially, our future to radicals on both sides.", he had said.

The archbishop had also commented that, "America was not built on hate."; and it would strike a number of people that he was missing the point.

The issue was not to prevent a mosque being built; it was to question the rational for choosing that particular site to build it. That was what has enraged all kinds of people, including those who were non-religious. They were seeing that the sensitivity of family members of the dead, and their right as American citizens to object to a dismal plan of that nature were being trampled underfoot.

That should be a cause for concern of those leaders who were suggesting that Muslims were being picked on unnecessarily.

Americans knew what religious freedom was more than people like Imam Rauf, who was running around vilifying others, without condemning the act of violence that started the whole thing. He has been noticeably making a case for a project that had no place near Ground Zero, particularly at the present time, when the nation was remembering what happened on 9/11. Many families were grieving lost ones in the inferno in which New Yorkers saw their people burn.

On the other hand, the spiritual leaders were abrogating their responsibility to ask the Imam to apologize for what happened on that day. The hatred swirling around the nation in recent days was about the callousness of the people of the Islamic religion to have done such a thing; and also insulting the intelligence of New Yorkers by insisting on building a mosque close to Ground Zero. How ogre (mosque).

To the religious and non-religious, there should be no need for a mosque.