Ground Zero Mosque-What I Believe

First of all let's get a few facts straight. This arguement is far too fraught with emotion and overheated press coverage to avoid high feeling entirely but I want to be clear.

1) The proposal is not just for a mosque it's a whole community center. Yes, it will include religious worship but also conference facilities and a health club.

2) It's not at Ground Zero. As the above picture shows it's two blocks away on a side street. I'm not saying that area was uneffected by the attack on 9/11, it was a Burlington Coat Factory store that was so heavily damaged it had to close, but it's not actually on the site of the former World Trade Center. And at only 13 stories once the Freedom Tower is built I think it will actually be pretty dwarfed.

3) The group who want the property have a similiar facility that's a neighborhood fixture further uptown. It's an older, smaller building and they are looking to expand because it has been so popular. These folks aren't new to the neighborhood or looking to build there only to make a point. Yes, they are Muslims, unlike the 9/11 hijackers. They were Muslim the same way the Crusaders were Christian-a fringe element that gets the tenants of a great religion horribly, horribly wrong. As former President Bush said (and don't we make strange bedfellows) "Al Quaida is not Islam".

I marshal these 3 arguements to support my position not just for allowing this community center to be built but for supporting it wholeheartedly. Seperate from any showy memorial actually on site I think this kind of thriving normalcy is exactly what that neighborhood needs. I think it would amply and neatly demonstrate the very qualities that make America great-freedom and tolerance-that angered the attackers in the first place. In my opinion, life goes on is the most powerful finger we can give the terrorists.

And, as this arguement gets more and more heated, I would also offer that memorials are always tricky. Think back to the contest to design the Vietnam Memorial. Maya Lin's winning design was hugely controversial, called 'ugly' and 'the black gash of shame'. Now, 20+ years later, it's a highlight of the Mall in Washington and Lin's design is seen as nothing short of revolutionary, completely changing the way America, and the world, think about memorial art.

Everyone wants a say in this, which is fair as 9/11 happened to all Americans, but I hope in the spitting heat of arguement we can again demonstrate what the late Shelby Foote called 'our great genius' - compromise.