Comments by President Barack Obama supporting the planned building of a mosque in the shadow of ground zero — where thousands of Americans died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the hands of Islamic extremists — have sparked a political firestorm of controversy across the nation ahead of a difficult time for many Democrats.
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“I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religions as everyone else in this county, and that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” Obama said to a crowd of Muslims he invited to the White House State Dining Room for an iftar dinner, a meal where Muslims break their day-long fast during the holy Ramadan month.
Now, one day after Obama made what the associated press is calling an “endorsement” of the controversial plan to build a mosque near ground zero, the president is trying to clarify his support.
“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said during a trip to Panama City Saturday. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
But critics of Obama aren’t cutting him any slack. They say it was wrong for him to insert the office of the President into the controversy playing out for months in Manhattan. Even some Obama supporters have turned on him with his support of this issue.
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A mother of a firefighter who was killed at the World Trade Center, Sally Regenhard, is quoted in several national outlets saying the president failed to understand the issue. “As an Obama supporter, I really feel that he’s lost sight of the germane issue, which is not about freedom of religion,” she said. “It’s about a gross lack of sensitivity to the 9/11 families and to the people who were lost.”
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, blasted Obama for his support and told the New York Times the proposed mosque and community center would be a symbol of Muslim “triumphalism” and that building it near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks “would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust museum.”
“It’s profoundly and terribly wrong,” he told the Times. “There is nothing surprising in the president’s continued pandering to radical Islam. What he said last night is untrue and inaccurate. The fact is this is not about religious liberty.”
Other Republican leaders have come out admitting that Muslims have the legal right to build the mosque two blocks from ground zero, but still think it’s the wrong choice for Mulsim leaders to offend so many by doing so.
“President Obama is wrong,” Republican Rep. Peter King told the Times. “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero.”
“The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done,” he continued, “was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from ground zero.
“Unfortunately,” King said, “the president caved in to political correctness.”
According to Fox News, former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told the network that another reason the mosque is drawing controversy is because it is being run by a man who accused the U.S. of being an accomplice in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Still, other Republicans, like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have come out supporting building the Mosque there in an effort to promote religious freedom and tolerance, and to show people what true Islam is all about and bring the city closer, according to an Al Jazeera report.
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In the Al Jazeera video, Muslims say they’re hopeful the Mosque will be built and persuade people who have the wrong idea about Islam to learn more about the religion and people who practice it peacefully.
KnightNews.com will continue following this controversy as we move closer to election season.
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