Archbishop Dolan invoked the example of Pope John Paul II, who in 1993 ordered Catholic nuns to move from their convent at the former Auschwitz death camp after protests from Jewish leaders.

What a deft analogy! How could anybody find fault with his impeccable logic?

Too much of any religion is not necessarily a good thing.

Here's some "mediation" for those who oppose the mosque. See if they can spot the relevant clauses:

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When I meditate I don't see the need for congress to be involved.
Unfortunately some very offensive things are not and should not be dealt with laws.
I'm just not sure that poking the stick, real or perceived is a wise thing.

I suspect his NAMBLA newsletter hasn't arrived yet.

I like the redress of grievances part.

I know!! The 9/11 victims could just demand redress from the government. For totally ignoring the warning of imminent threat from al Qaeda. The compensation the victims families could ask for could be so, so, beautifully simple.

No new sectarian institutions around ground zero, thank you. Interfaith places ONLY. Organized religion = bad news, at ground zero, you know.

The Constitution is designed specifically to protect the freedom of unpopular minorities from the tyranny of the majority (i.e. people like the mosque organizers from people like you).

If you don't like freedom, you should move to northern Pakistan. There is a group there called the Taliban which also loves to tell people what they can do and where. You'd fit right in.

You know, noone is interfering with the right of a religious minority to practice its faith when they OBJECT to the erection of a mosque on ground zero, especially if said minority can happily set up shop elsewhere where it won't put a stick in the eyes of 9/11 mourners whose loved ones were victims of religious ideology.

But such nuances seem to escape so many who only care about the right of the hammer to crush the peanut.

But thanks for the characterization, Snards, I'll add it to my trophy chest on the subject of political dialogue.

Oh, you consider your position "nuanced". Hilarious.

They aren't building a mosque on ground zero. They're building it two blocks away, because they found a good site there.

When you make 9/11 a religious issue you're giving Bin Laden exactly what he wants. Terrorism is political, but cynical leaders like Bin Laden pretend it's religious to drum up support. If you want to thwart Bin Laden, you refuse to agree that this is about the religions. You constantly reinforce that it's about al Queda, not Islam. Even GW Bush had that figure out.

Actually Snards, Islam is also a problem. I would suggest you spend some time in the same places you referred me to, in order to come to a fuller understanding about Islam.

Oh, right, I must be a bigot. Yawn. That's why I'm an Arabophile and went to language school in the Middle East and took intensive Arabic for a year, and loved it, and made some of my deepest friendships, with secular people from Muslim backgrounds.

I lived eight years in the Middle East, and barely a day goes by that I don't feel sorry for all the people who suffer under the yoke of the religion there.

But keep on thinking what you think, Snards, that Islam is A-OK.

If asked, would the "secular" people you knew consider themselves muslims? I'm guessing they would. And it sounds like they weren't such bad folks.

They might say something like "I'm not a practicing Muslim". And guess what, people who had no interest in religious dogma were plentiful when I lived in the region, and you could barely find a woman in the major cities who wore a hijab. Now, thanks to the Saudis and their cultivation of a powerful Wahhabi influence in the region, the hijab is everywhere.

In Turkey early last century, Ataturk tried to ban the loudspeakers at the mosque from chanting prayers five times a day, but eventually had to settle for banning prayer in Arabic- prayers were only allowed in Turkish. If Ataturk could see all the teenagers in hijabs in Turkey today, and hear all the booming prayers in Arabic five times a day, he would roll in his grave, knowing that even a newborn baby cannot escape the intrusion of religion into his world.

Oh, and Snards? You haven't heard the latest, clearly. Your assertion that the mosque is going in to that particular location just because the organizers found a "good site" there, doesn't seem accurate. The organizers put out a statement in response to the recent polite offers from the Governor and the man of the cloth to help find a more appropriate space for them. The statement said, flatly, that the organizers wouldn't be building an Islamic center if it couldn't be in the current proposed site.

This must be related to that desire to build understanding, or something.

The center won't be built simply because there is only $18,000 currently raised for its development. This is all much ado about nothing.

"If Ataturk could see all the teenagers in hijabs in Turkey today, and hear all the booming prayers in Arabic five times a day, he would roll in his grave"

A genocidist upset about modern-day teenagers... to think!

I could see there being a big issue if it actually was at ground zero, but its not.
Take a look on Google Maps. Its not even part of the WTC block. Ground zero is over two blocks away. So why the issue?

What I am concerned with, is where the money is coming from to purchase some of the most expensive real estate in the US.

I wonder how anxious the New York trade unions will be to begin work on the proposed mosque.

All I know is that relatives living in NY & PA states are livid about this mosque being built in this location. These are college educated relatives who tend to vote Democratic. They are outraged not only about the location; but by the fact that the Imam of this mosque is being paid by US taxpayers for a tour of the middle east.

It's always interesting to see people try and use logic and reason to convince others that their emotional, symbolic or gut reactions are "wrong." Reasonable people can understand that there's a legal "right" to build a Mosque any place someone can gain the needed property, permits and etc. Reasonable people can also understand the symbolic nature of a piece of property on which debris from the greatest mass murder of innocent Americans - committed by Islamic Terrorists - in history landed. Irrational people believe that the only controlling information is whether something is legal or constitutional. A reasonable person can both understand there's a "right" to build and that it's "wrong" to build.

Ataturk was not a genocidist. Ataturk ascended to power several years after the genocide, which coincided with the 1914-18 world war. The masterminds of the genocide were Young Turks who had formed the Committee of Union and Progress; Ataturk publically denounced them when he came to power, but it is true that for political reasons he didn't bring them to justice as he had promised. Most were eventually hanged or killed during the first decade of his rule, however.

Ataturk deserves a lot of respect for energetically and successfully promoting secularism in a country that had just witnessed the mass murder of perhaps as many as a million Armenian Christians, carried out by Turkish Muslims.

Boy, I would like just one politician to be elected today who can confidently say that, generally speaking, secularism is a desirable thing. Instead, we have to watch politicians pandering constantly to "religious freedoms".