Last week Andrea Peyser wrote an article in the New York Post about the construction of a mosque near ground zero. The Muslim house of worship would be built with a 13-story cultural center in a building that was formerly owned by Burlington Coat Factory.
When I first read this story, it really didn't register. But after I heard comments from some of the surviving relatives of the people killed at ground zero on September 11th, I wondered what is really going on here. There is a lot of land available in New York City to build a mosque. Land prices are down right now; there is no reason to build at ground zero. There are also two disturbing things about this mosque. The planned opening day for the mosque is September 11, 2011. The cost of the mosque is expected to be in excess of $100 million. There are some obvious questions as to where this money is coming from.
Fox News reported yesterday that there are now plans to build a second, smaller mosque two blocks from ground zero.
It seems rather insensitive to build a mosque on a site where Muslims murdered Americans and even more insensitive to open the mosque on the tenth anniversary of that date. If the Muslims in charge of this mosque truly wanted to convey a message of peace, it seems to me that they would change the location and the opening date of their proposed mosque.
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