[Rook]

I found this to be Very true, and thought provoking...

Two blocks is enough to generate controversy. But then it occurred to me: that's in Manhattan, which is a terrifically diverse place, both ethnically and religiously. It has large populations of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Sikhs and "people of the Muslim faith" as Some call them (I am going to go ahead and just call them Muslims.) So as to why someone might want to build a mosque down there, well, there's probably a need.

But then I started thinking: If the WTC "sacred ground" extends for a few blocks from the actual site, what else might be down there to offend the sensibilities of, say, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? For instance, there's a Ground Zero Hookah bar. A Ground Zero Irish pub. A Ground Zero strip club called "New York Dolls" (Not that I knew that; I looked it up on Google Maps. Swear to god.)

There are Ground Zero hot-dog carts, Ground Zero Starbucks (how could there not be?), Ground Zero cigarette stores, and even a Ground Zero shop called "Carrot Top Pastries," which I assume isn't endorsed by THAT Carrot Top, or that would be an abomination. An abomination against good taste.

All this, just blocks from Ground Zero. Now, if you are actually AT Ground Zero, you find a Ground Zero pawn shop, A Ground Zero Chinese restaurant called Hoyip, the Ground Zero hair dresser and a Ground Zero Burger King.

All of them cutting hair, pawning jewelry and clogging American arteries without a hint of controversy.

So let me suggest two reasons why we would not have a national referendum on the mosque (actually a community center).. The first is the oft-referenced freedom of religion, and that's a pretty good reason. The second is property rights: people have the right to, more or less, do whatever they want with the property they own, as long as it is within the law (which appears to be true of the mosque).

The idea that I would have a vote on a private party doing what they have the right to do strikes me as inherently un-American.
What if we all had a vote on guns? Not on the right of gun ownership, but on which individuals could own guns.
Believe me, I know a few gun owners who, if I only had the vote...
And of course I don't, because that would be ridiculous. You know what else is ridiculous? The controversy surrounding the Ground Zero mosque. Those opposed to the mosque frame the argument in terms of respecting the sensibilities of the victims' families, and to the hallowed ground that still to this day is an undeveloped plot of land (if you're looking for a real controversy).
But let us stop pretending and call this "controversy" what it is: a xenophobic, bigoted attack on the religion of over a billion people, 37,000 of whom live in Manhattan: those "of the Muslim faith."

Thomas Strodtbeck
Liverpool, United Kingdom
(Formerly of Athens)