I am disgusted by our so called leaders using the US Constitution as toilet paper. With the exception of a few such as Mayor Bloomberg (R-NY) and President Obama (D) and, to a lesser extent, Governor Christie (R-NJ), many have succumbed to the zealots' dark side. Senator Reid's cowardly statement saying he didn't support the mosque was just the latest sign of the cowardice from those who would prefer to forget some of the basics from the Constitution. There is no exception in the First Amendment for religions we don't like. There is no exception to ban religions from building a house of worship at a certain site because it makes others uncomfortable.
My wife and I used to live in Brooklyn Heights, with a view of the World Trade Center from our apartment window. I can't begin to tell you how many pictures we have with the Trade Center in the background, including pictures we took from the roof of our building. We frequented the mall in the basement frequently with Borders being our main meeting up spot in the days before cell phones. To many of the real Americans opposing the mosque, 9/11 was a TV event. I lived it. Most of America was able to go back to work on Monday with everything back to normal. Not so for those in NYC (and Washington too I imagine).
I watched the buildings burn and fall from my office. And, as we were being evacuated and the phones went dead and I couldn't reach the brother who worked across the street and frequently was in one of the towers, wondered if I was going to have to tell my mother that night she had lost another son (he was running late and was outside when the first plane hit). Later, as I checked email and read of people I knew who lost somebody, I smelled the burning buildings from our home. I saw the smoking ruins when I returned to work on Monday (which was a task in itself). I read with sadness that most of the firefighters from our local firehouse perished that day, though I didn't know them aside from a quick hello if we walked past the firehouse with our dog. It took a long time until I could look at lower Manhattan without feeling grief.
Sometime ago, 4 or 5 years ago, maybe longer, that changed. Maybe it was the PATH station reopening and my starting to think of the site as a construction zone when I came in from NJ where we moved to when our son was born. Maybe it was seeing how much of the area remained the same east of Church Street and thinking this is not the WTC site once I crossed the road. Maybe it was all the other development in lower Manhattan. Maybe it was just time healing all wounds. Whatever. None of this has to do with the mosque and that is my point. My personal thoughts and those of people who do not live or work in the neighborhood should not matter. It is a local issue and the local community board has decided that an abandoned building two blocks away, surrounded by strip clubs and bars in a world different from the financial and professional world that existed just blocks away, was ok for a house of worship (for those who have never been to Manhattan, neighborhoods can change drastically in just a few blocks).
It is the Muslim people looking to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site, not the Taliban or even the Saudi Arabians. Too bad if not restricting the rights of others to make you feel better is unconstitutional. We are not a nation that has religious squads roaming our cities trying to enforce their views on the population. We are a nation of religious freedom and somebody needs to remind Real Americans what their ancestors came to this country for and fought for.
And to those from other parts of the country who feel they have a right to comment on a local zoning issue I ask what would there reaction have been if families of federal workers from around the nation had demanded that no churches be constructed within blocks of the Murrow building site in Oklahoma City because Timothy McVeigh was a Christian? I suspect laughter even though these are the same people who would have probably eagerly placed innocent US Japanese citizens in internment camps after Pearl Harbor because they happened to be the same nationality as those who attacked the US.
It is easy to follow mob rule like Senator Reid has done, it is harder to stand up for what is right, especially if it is going to cost you votes. That doesn't make taking the chicken's way out correct. A real leader, no matter the party, would remind the population about this. Freedom and liberty can be ugly at times. That is the price we pay for being free.
