Proposed Mosque Near Ground Zero

[Toughy]

FA......

It is NOT a Mosque. It is a Community Center that also has a prayer room. It's called the Cordoba House.

How is that inappropriate, considering the number of strip joints and liquor stores that are closer to that 'sacred ground'?

Does that change your opinion?

[FeminineAllure]

Originally Posted by Toughy

FA......

It is NOT a Mosque. It is a Community Center that also has a prayer room. It's called the Cordoba House.

How is that inappropriate, considering the number of strip joints and liquor stores that are closer to that 'sacred ground'?

Does that change your opinion?

I admit that *Inappropriate* is a poor word choice.
I still belive it would be nice to have an all faiths space to go to pay tribute and remember lost loved ones of who were of many different faiths.

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by FeminineAllure

I admit that *Inappropriate* is a poor word choice.
I still belive it would be nice to have an all faiths space to go to pay tribute and remember lost loved ones of who were of many different faiths.

Do you feel the Community Center is being built as some kind of tribute ?

I am confused by this as well, thanks in advance

[AtLast]

[QUOTE=Toughy;186210]FA......

It is NOT a Mosque. It is a Community Center that also has a prayer room. It's called the Cordoba House.

[QUOTE]

I KNOW! It is making me crazy that it keeps being called a mosque! Isn't it interesting, that each and every Muslim spokesperson on the media coverage going on, refers to it as a community center with a prayer room. But, non-Muslims keep calling it a mosque. I actually think the media has fed this whole thing.

I had friends in the towers that day, some of which did not make it out as well as co-workers and friends of all of them. I have family and friends in NYC, NJ CT and in PA (all of which i do not get to see often, dammit) that live and work around this area. My 2 remaining friends connected with this group of people in my life that got out do NOT have a problem with this community center being built there at all. Nor do members of my family living there. All of them think it is time heal and that a community center with a Muslim connection may very well help do this. They also feel that the media is heating this up a lot, mainly by continuing to refer to as a mosque and not correcting stories being circulated.

I have no idea how all of the family and friends of those killed that day feel about this or the rest of the City of New York. I don't trust what has been covered about this at this point at all.

What I feel deeply is that if this center's construction is stopped, it will set precident for any Muslim building being proposed all over the US, including mosques and that is just wrong! True Muslims were not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

[weatherboi]

hey ALH-

i highlighted the part of your post i am speaking to.
here is an interview with a woman whose pregnant daughter was killed in 9/11 that i posted earlier on in the thread.

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

I KNOW! It is making me crazy that it keeps being called a mosque! Isn't it interesting, that each and every Muslim spokesperson on the media coverage going on, refers to it as a community center with a prayer room. But, non-Muslims keep calling it a mosque. I actually think the media has fed this whole thing.

I had friends in the towers that day, some of which did not make it out as well as co-workers and friends of all of them. I have family and friends in NYC, NJ CT and in PA (all of which i do not get to see often, dammit) that live and work around this area. My 2 remaining friends connected with this group of people in my life that got out do NOT have a problem with this community center being built there at all. Nor do members of my family living there. All of them think it is time heal and that a community center with a Muslim connection may very well help do this. They also feel that the media is heating this up a lot, mainly by continuing to refer to as a mosque and not correcting stories being circulated.

I have no idea how all of the family and friends of those killed that day feel about this or the rest of the City of New York. I don't trust what has been covered about this at this point at all.

What I feel deeply is that if this center's construction is stopped, it will set precident for any Muslim building being proposed all over the US, including mosques and that is just wrong! True Muslims were not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by weatherboi

hey ALH-

i highlighted the part of your post i am speaking to.
here is an interview with a woman whose pregnant daughter was killed in 9/11 that i posted earlier on in the thread.

Thanks so much for re-posting this. I watch "Keith" often, but missed this one. Thinking that my friend, a survivor might be involved with this group. Would make sense.

I know this is a tough one for so many and I was home only a couple of days from a trip back to NYC when it hit. Just was with these friends and some family, danced at one of the music production at the Towers during lunch hour that used to go there. Frankly, I loved going to those buildings. But, we can't allow the hate-filled bigotry based upon so much misinformation take away some of the things I have hope will be restored to the US, namely our rich immigrant history and the contributions so many have brought here.

[MsMerrick]

Kooch, not really clear what you are saying. While your first link, the wikipedia one, seems not too unbalanced, your second link is clearly inflammatory and not based on facts. Since it starts off by claiming that a Mosque is being built on the ground where the Twin Towers were, right away, I see lies and falsehoods, and slanderous utterances.
You also quote a bit from the Imam's wife, but not the whole sentence, which makes more sense than your snippet.
Full quote :
While the media widely described the center as a mosque, and the protests were against the mosque, the Initiative's official blog portrayed it as a community center with prayer space, making comparisons to the YMCA or Jewish Community Center.[85] The Initiative said that some services planned for the Cordoba House, such as the restaurant and performance center, disqualify it from being a mosque.[86] Daisy Khan, Imam Rauf’s wife and partner, in August 2010 also said:

We insist on calling it a prayer space and not a mosque, because you can use a prayer space for activities apart from prayer. You can't stop anyone who is a Muslim despite his religious ideology from entering the mosque and staying there. With a prayer space, we can control who gets to use it.[51]

The official website for the facility says it will include "a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community".[87]

Besides the Muslim prayer space, the Initiative's plan includes a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions, bookstore, culinary school, and a food court serving halal dishes.[37][21][66][74][88][7]

I am not sure what that quote meant to you, but want it meant to me, was that they don't want fanatical hatred filled fanatics, using the space.
As a native New Yorker, born in New York City, and also quite present that day, I am fully for, not letting the Terrorists win, and that means, supporting the Constitution, and refusing to discriminate against any religion. Either we are better then them or we are not.
There's no religion in my book that is better than any other, and I gather in yours. ( Which seems to mark a change for you ? ) but I do believe in the Constitution, and the rule of law, and that means a balanced across the board freedom, for religions.
At some point, I wondered a lot, how Hitler, came to power..and..what about the everyday people / Did they collectively rise up and decide to just over look evil ? Or did they decide to participate. How did that all happen ? Look into it sometime, because I tell you true, the way things are going, the rise of populist "leaders" like Palin and Beck, and this Islamaphobia, correlate way too closely .. Evil does exist, imho, but it exists wherever ignorance and sloppy thinking trump reason, not some shadowy figure.

[SuperFemme]

I'm going to post this list again, because it irks me to hear people cite how traumatized they are by 9/11 and use that as a reason to tell "them" to go build it somewhere else.

So apparently, although many Muslim people died that day, their grief is not as important as that of a non-Muslim person. Muslim grief is something that should be swept under the carpet, the only deaths being mourned are those of the men who took over the planes. Because we lost the chance to kill them ourselves.

Muslim people who died that day:

Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad (45 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and 3 children)
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah (40 years old; Fiduciary Trust Co.; ICNA website team member; leaves wife and 2 children)
Touri Bolourchi (69 years old; United Airlines #175; a retired nurse from Tehran)
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury (30 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Mohammad S. Chowdhury (39 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and child born 2 days after the attack)
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani (35 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha (54 years old; Pitney Bowes)
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani (50 years old)
Salman Hamdani (NYPD Cadet)
Aisha Harris (21 years old; General Telecom)
Shakila Hoque (Marsh & McLennan)
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan (Marsh & McLennan)
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta (MAS security)
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan (32 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Taimour Khan (29 years old; Karr Futures)
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah (36 years old)
Mubarak Mohammad (23 years old)
Boyie Mohammed (Carr Futures)
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja (28 years old)
Ameenia Rasool (33 years old)
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child (28 years old; American Airlines #11; wife of Michael Theodoridis; 7 months pregnant)
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid (25 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald; engaged to be married in November)
Mohammed Shajahan (44 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
Naseema Simjee (Franklin Resources Inc.'s Fiduciary Trust)
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami (40 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Michael Theodoridis (32 years old; American Airlines #11; husband of Rahma Salie)
W. Wahid

I hurt in my heart when I think about the families of these people watching this bullshit circus in the media. To me it is akin to spitting on a grave.

Fear is indeed, the great mind killer, because when I see incredibly intelligent people latch onto that fear and participate in Islamophobia I die a little inside.

I have to wonder if anyone noticed the parallels between Islamophobia and the wave of hatred/racism against MY people: Hispanics? It seems being brown is now a viable reason to put a target on ones back in this country and expect those same brown people to be fucking grateful for the small amount of civil liberties they may still receive. So gross, and so scary and when I read Merrick speaking of the Holocaust in comparison to what is happening here in this country right now I know she is right.

[dreadgeek]

Well, it seems that there ARE cool heads making news about this;


Item 1:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/07/new...ex.html?hpt=T2

Numerous faith leaders in recent weeks have expressed concerns about hate crimes against American Muslims in the runup to this weekend's anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, which coincides with the holiday of Eid-al-Fitr marking the conclusion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Attorney General Eric Holder is slated to discuss the concern at a Tuesday afternoon meeting with religious leaders at the Justice Department. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may weigh in on the debate as well when she joins a Ramadan celebration at the State Department Tuesday night. Clinton is expected to deliver remarks around 8 p.m. ET.

Item 2:

General Petraeus is also warning that this idea of burning the koran is going to cause problems for troops still in the Afghan theater of operations

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11209738


Cheers
Aj

[chefhmboyrd]

this is ridiculous. if they were burning bibles in Afganistan, they would want to nuke them
ignorance......

it wouldn't matter if the aformentioned Mosque was built 1 block or ten blocks away from "Ground Zero", someone would have a big opinion on how it was "disrespectful"

the terrorist acts made on America were not made by the entire Muslim world, but if these ignorant assholes keep burning the Koran, and saying inflammatory things about other people's religion, we will just make more enemies.
i am neither Jew, Christian, nor Muslim...... and if you read what i have been reading in the news and on the internet, you would understand why
all i see from any of the "organized" religions is hate and war and intolerance.......

[dreadgeek]

Before I go to lunch, since this is on my mind, I wanted to post and I hope folks, particularly folks on the other side of this issue, will think about it:

If I stand up and shout loudly and long about how much I value and treasure MY right to free speech or MY right to practice the religion of my choice, I've told you nothing much about my commitment to those principles. Any fool, once she figures out she has a right to free speech and religion, is going to be all in favor of her rights. If, on the other hand, I stand up and shout loudly and long about my support of the right of expression of the person who espouses an idea that I not just disagree with but find odious and deeply offensive, NOW you've learned something useful about how much I mean it when I say I believe in free speech. Likewise, if I stand up and defend the right of someone to practice the religion that I not only don't practice, but wouldn't practice if you paid me, that I don't know much about and what I do know, I don't like THEN you can tell something about how deep my commitment is to freedom of conscience and religion.

The First Amendment is not, as many Americans suppose, there to protect Christianity in a nation that is majority Christian. If you are a Christian, your religious freedom is protected because your religion is in the majority. The First Amendment is there to protect the Jew, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Atheist, the Pagan, the Sikh and others. Yes, it protects Christians as well but Christians don't *need* the protection--the minority religions do. In the same vein, the First Amendment doesn't protect the popular opinion. It isn't there to protect proclaiming that Jesus is Lord nor is it there to protect chanting USA! USA! USA! at the least provocation. Rather, it is there to protect the scholar who says that there's scant evidence that the historical Jesus actually existed and that the Gospel stories borrow liberally from other myths that were known in the Levant at the beginning of the Common Era. It is there to protect the person who says "well, America is good but then there's slavery or the decimation of the native populations or the unprovoked invasion of Iraq..." The popular position NEEDS no protection, it is the least popular opinion, the one that you wish the speaker would shut the hell up and never say another word, that needs protection.

That is how we know whether someone means it when they say that they believe in free speech and freedom of conscience.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by MsMerrick

There's no religion in my book that is better than any other, and I gather in yours. ( Which seems to mark a change for you ? ) but I do believe in the Constitution, and the rule of law, and that means a balanced across the board freedom, for religions.
At some point, I wondered a lot, how Hitler, came to power..and..what about the everyday people / Did they collectively rise up and decide to just over look evil ? Or did they decide to participate. How did that all happen ? Look into it sometime, because I tell you true, the way things are going, the rise of populist "leaders" like Palin and Beck, and this Islamaphobia, correlate way too closely .. Evil does exist, imho, but it exists wherever ignorance and sloppy thinking trump reason, not some shadowy figure.

Outside of 'the banality of evil' the best sentiment I've ever read on the evil that ordinary people will do is this one from Terry Pratchett:

"And it all meant this: there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot be easily duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes into work every day and has a job to do." (Small Gods)

[dreadgeek]

I was watching Olbermann and there was a young man on with Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans of America who made a good point that I missed. There are still troops at the tip-of-the-spear in Afghanistan. The Afghanis and the foreign fighters who might be in that country to fight the Americans have satellite TV and Internet access as well. They see news that we see through Al Jazeera or the BBC or CNN World. This Saturday a church in Florida is going to burn the Qur'an as a sign of solidarity with the victims and families of 9/11. This young man, in talking about this event, said something that I think is germane here: images of the Qur'an being will be seen in Afghanistan and there are young men and women whose lives will be put at risk. Images of Americans protesting the building of an Islamic community center will be seen in Afghanistan. Those images will put the lives of soldiers at risk.

My son is one of those soldiers. What we do here in America has consequences off shore. Something that perhaps we might want to think about.

Cheers
Aj

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I was watching Olbermann and there was a young man on with Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans of America who made a good point that I missed. There are still troops at the tip-of-the-spear in Afghanistan. The Afghanis and the foreign fighters who might be in that country to fight the Americans have satellite TV and Internet access as well. They see news that we see through Al Jazeera or the BBC or CNN World. This Saturday a church in Florida is going to burn the Qur'an as a sign of solidarity with the victims and families of 9/11. This young man, in talking about this event, said something that I think is germane here: images of the Qur'an being will be seen in Afghanistan and there are young men and women whose lives will be put at risk. Images of Americans protesting the building of an Islamic community center will be seen in Afghanistan. Those images will put the lives of soldiers at risk.

My son is one of those soldiers. What we do here in America has consequences off shore. Something that perhaps we might want to think about.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, those images will and I am glad that military generals are speaking up about this. No joke about your son and all of the daughters and sons in Afghanistan.

Today while listening to the radio while out, I heard this minister just shine this whole thing on, saying that if more lives were lost, it was not our fault (his congegation planning on doing this), it is Islam's fault. I wanted to climb through the radio waves and smack him. I have a couple of good friends with kids serving in Afghanistan. The thought of them risking their lives for the likes of this minister boils my blood. One of the things our military is trying to accomplish there has to do with changing the way the US is viewed by Muslims. Many are trying to gain trust with a people that have had nothing but war and other countries occuping their country in their country for decades.

I had to just turn the radio off after hearing this- it was in response to Gen. Peteraus (sp?) speaking out about the danger this could escalate for troops. You know, I am actually starting to have physiological responses about this each and every time I hear about the buring, the community center and the coutless bites about anti-Muslim sentiments. My stomach does wrench. I think about my friends (and you, plus other members that have kids/loved ones serving) and think about what it would be like if my kid were there and this was going on. My oldest grand daughter will be 18 soon and what if she decides on a military career? It could happen.

My best to your son, Aj- and I hope these idiots don't do this.

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

But, non-Muslims keep calling it a mosque. I actually think the media has fed this whole thing.

That much should be obvious by now, methinks. If it weren't for the repercussions of the media and American public's ignorance and fear of Islam, this situation would actually be insanely hilarious if only because of people's blatant stupidity.

Muslims: "We're going to build a community centre."
American media/public "Aaaaahhhh Mosque! Terror cell! Aaaaahhh!"
Muslims: "But...it's a community centre..."
American media/public: "How COULD you build a Mosque so close to the 911 site!?"
Muslims: "Umm....community centre?"
American media/public: "The horror of it! How could they build a Mosque! Oh god, the inhumanity!"
Muslims: "But there is already a Mosque some blocks away that has been here since before 911...and we aren't building a Mosque. It's a community centre..."
American media/public: "OH MY GOD A MOSQUE!!!! Terrorists are funding it! How can we let terrorists build a terror mosque so close to the 911 site!"
Muslims:*sigh*

A friend of mine showed me this amusing Daily Show clip. The stupidity of American news networks continues to astound me...

http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Displ...9-39b86da82f80