If this debate has confirmed anything, it is my belief that the majority of the world's problems can be traced back to religion.
While all religions are suppose to teach brotherly love, kindness and tolerance, the actual practice as evidenced by comments here is quit different.

If you look at the dissension around the globe, religion is usually at the heart of the problem: Jews fighting Muslims, Muslims fighting Hindus, Christians fighting Muslims, Muslims fighting Muslims, Christians fighting Christians. About the only religion that seems to practice what it preaches is Buddhism...and I'm not even sure about Buddhists.

So while Beck is calling for us to come back to God, we are reminded by all the strife going on in the world that religion is the cause of many of our ills .... not the cure.

Perhaps what the world really needs is a vacation from God.

at the park51 site Prolific Playwright Larry Myers has escorted his own theater students to the location the st john's u which is international & inclusive is 2 blocks away dr myers wrote "Utopia ReScheduled' about 9/11 & is readying a new sequel for this year's event

My first interaction with an American newspaper and it's readers is quite a revelation. I never imagined that so many readers of such an esteemed publication would have bigoted views, it makes Al Qaeda looks civilised!
A mosque is a house of God where the Creator is remembered, how can anyone object to that.
May God give wisdom and eliminate bigotry from this world so that there can be peace.

Islam is not a true religion and deserves no protection under freedom of religion. Islam is a military, political, and legal system in the guise of a religion. Look at the true Islamic countries in this world. They are controlled by clerics. They govern by dictatorship and Sharia law. A woman must have four male witnesses before she can prove a rape has occurred. A woman that has an affair is sentenced to be stoned to death. A member of the Islamic faith that leaves the faith (an apostate) receives the death penalty. It goes on and on. It is a cruel, primitive, and barbaric way of life. If the Nazis had called their beliefs a religion, would we have protected their beliefs too? I personally believe Islam is far worse than what the beliefs of the Nazis were. I don't believe a single muslim should be allowed in the USA. Allowing them to be in this country is akin to allowing rattlesnakes to reside in your bedroom. Sooner or later they will strike.

POSTED BY: ELISA2

"I think everyone already knows that with Al Qaeda it is total sniveling subservience and respect towards radical Islam or die."

Which is why the more Muslims learn of Al Qaeda, the more they oppose it.

"Playing into their hands is the surrender of rights to free speech to appease them, not maintaining those rights."

Nobody is prosing to surrender free speech, and no one proposes appeasing Al Qaeda.

What the authors are suggesting is that speech can be counter-productive, even dumb. Speech that confuses Al Qaeda with Islam or Muslims in general is ill-informed and counter-productive. It serves the aims of Al Qaeda. It will make the job of fighting radical extremists harder.

Franklin Graham is an ignorant man with a small soul stained by bigotry. He has the right to speak, but we have the right to call him out for his errors.

Yet it appears muslims are not concerned about reaching the "hearts and minds" of the 70% of Americans who opposed the ground zero mosque.If our governments efforts to reach the "hearts and minds" of muslims had been successful, I would think muslims would show the sensitivity they always demand from non-Muslims and move the mosque away from ground zero.
*****

I wish you would reconsider talking about Muslims and non-Muslims as if they were all of one view and one mind.

Muslims opinion on the mosque is divided. Some are more concerned about the backlash, some are more concerned that if the proponents back down, it accepts the very bad idea that Islam is the enemy that attacked on 9/11, rather than a small group of radical fanatics claiming to represent Islam. Showing sensitivity in this case has a very high cost.

Along the same line, which Muslims demand more sensitivity from which non-Muslims? The groups that complained about cartoon representations of Mohammed represented a few dozen of the millions of US Muslims.

And why are some Americans opposed to the mosque? Last November when plans were announced, nobody was excited. Even conservatives thought it was a fine idea. But this spring, a radical right-wing blogger began promoting the idea that this was an insult - under the theory that we are at war with Islam rather than terrorists - and others began to run with it. It is simply the results of a propaganda campaign. It's kind of scary to find out how much of the public is susceptible to such simplistic propaganda.

So the important battle here is first for the hearts and minds of non-Muslims. Will they pay sufficient attention to understand why the attack on the proposed Islamic center is a bad idea?

Can we defeat the Al Qaeda-inspired idea that they are the true face of Islam? Can Americans understand that 99.99% of world Muslims are opposed to Al Qaeda, and many are current or potential allies if we avoid the mistake of making them into enemies by defaming their faith and misrepresenting their behavior?

Good luck to us.

I think everyone already knows that with Al Qaeda it is total sniveling subservience and respect towards radical Islam or die.

Playing into their hands is the surrender of rights to free speech to appease them, not maintaining those rights.

SAMKAPLAN comments, "The First Amendment trumps all debate."

This is completely untrue. This is a deceitful notion fabricated and furthered by left liberal socialists such as Obama, Pelosi and Kohlmann who are intent upon surrendering America to our nemesis, Islam.

Evidence of this treasonous deceit perpetrated by Obama, Pelosi and others is our judicial system, specifically our U.S. Supreme Court. A very simply question is often answered by judicial system from state level to supreme court level, "Is this constitutional?"

Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights _never_ trump debate. Our very judicial system is a process of debating if a law, a rule, an action or a behavior is constitutional.

Left liberal socialists who claim there is no debate about the Ground Zero mosque based upon freedom of religion are outright bald-face liars engaging in treasonous acts.

Obama committed a direct act of treason against America. His announcing Islam has a constitutional right to build this Ground Zero mosque is a deliberate lie with an intent by Obama to subvert our government. Obama is a traitor as are all who perpetrate this lie upon our America.

Monday morning, a New York city building department decision could be announced, "In the interest of public safety, a building permit for this mosque is denied."

This ruling can then be constitutionally challenged and debated within our judicial system.

This notion our Constitution trumps debate is a deliberate lie perpetrated by Obama and left liberal socialists, all of whom hate our nation and intend to destroy our nation.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

___________

Should the City of New York City revoke the permit without compelling reason, such as evidence of a bomb's having been planted on site, a Federal court will reverse matters. The First Amendment does triumph in this matter. More heinous than the entity derived from the worst inferences of Islam are racist Churches now extant; as these possess full religious freedoms, so should Islam. Our nemesis after 1776 comprised the Barbary pirates, who were Muslim; Islam was not banned or restricted. It is not the religion, but the use of the religion that is vital. Many are my Muslim acquaintances and friends; none would commit suicide to advance the will of God.

An honest war would have been with Saudi Arabia where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from, where the Cole bombers came from, where Wahabi extremists call home.

But we need their oil and our oil people are friends with the Saudi.

So we launched a misdirected crusade in Iraq and Afghanistan, that helps the oil companies, drug dealers, and defense contractors.

I wish our political leaders would be more prudent about how they spend our soldiers lives and our tax dollars.

For years we've been told of the importance of reaching the "hearts and minds" of muslims.Yet it appears muslims are not concerned about reaching the "hearts and minds" of the 70% of Americans who opposed the ground zero mosque.If our governments efforts to reach the "hearts and minds" of muslims had been successful, I would think muslims would show the sensitivity they always demand from non-Muslims and move the mosque away from ground zero.

We non-Muslims have also been told for years by the left that the answer to speech that offends is more speech.Even if that speech demeans our religious belief. I would think that standard also applies to muslims. It doesn't matter whether muslims either foreign or domestic are offended by comments about islam or the ground zero mosque. The right to free speech is guaranteed by the US Constitution whether muslims like it or not.

Useful idiots.

Lenin coined that term, for capitalists whom he knew would sell the USSR everything it would need to destroy the West. Now we have a new breed of useful idiots, doing al Qaeda's work for it.

Bin Laden's useful idiots rant endlessly and brainlessly about Islam, Muslims, our Constitution, and history. As the author of this column correctly points out, they play right into al Qaeda's hands. They knowingly and willingly serve as its recruiting agent. They do so because they mindlessly follow corrupt leaders who care only about political advantage. Anyone who thinks Glenn Beck is about anything other than Glenn Beck is delusional. Ditto for Sarah Palin, OxyContin Rush, Fox Propaganda, the not-very Rev. Graham, and the rest of al Qaeda's useful idiots.

Do they realize that this center would refudiate bin Laden? Do they realize he would hate it and consider the founders traitors to Islam? Do they realize that al Qaeda routinely kills Muslims such as those involved with Cordoba House?

Probably not. But useful idiots don't care. Not about Islam, not about America, not about anything other than that about which their fearless leaders direct them to care. Just like Germany in 1933. Except these useful idiots don't wear brownshirts. Instead, they swear allegiance to People's Democratic Republic of Beckistan.

Al-Qaeda will never love us, will never tolerate us, will never accept us.

The only good AL-Qaeda is a dead Al-QAEDA.

As a former TV terrorism analyst, I agree that the debate plays into Al Qaida's hands - it makes us look like religious bigots branding all 1.5 billion Muslims as terrorists.

At a NASA terrorism briefing last week, their security chief said "there are 50,000 terrorists in 60 countries." By definition, that excludes the other 1.5 BILLION. We did a Global AMerican radio program on this issue with a FBI terrorism expert which you can hear at www.GlobalAmerican.org

SAMKAPLAN comments, "The First Amendment trumps all debate."

This is completely untrue. This is a deceitful notion fabricated and furthered by left liberal socialists such as Obama, Pelosi and Kohlmann who are intent upon surrendering America to our nemesis, Islam.

Evidence of this treasonous deceit perpetrated by Obama, Pelosi and others is our judicial system, specifically our U.S. Supreme Court. A very simply question is often answered by judicial system from state level to supreme court level, "Is this constitutional?"

Our Constitution and our Bill of Rights _never_ trump debate. Our very judicial system is a process of debating if a law, a rule, an action or a behavior is constitutional.

Left liberal socialists who claim there is no debate about the Ground Zero mosque based upon freedom of religion are outright bald-face liars engaging in treasonous acts.

Obama committed a direct act of treason against America. His announcing Islam has a constitutional right to build this Ground Zero mosque is a deliberate lie with an intent by Obama to subvert our government. Obama is a traitor as are all who perpetrate this lie upon our America.

Monday morning, a New York city building department decision could be announced, "In the interest of public safety, a building permit for this mosque is denied."

This ruling can then be constitutionally challenged and debated within our judicial system.

This notion our Constitution trumps debate is a deliberate lie perpetrated by Obama and left liberal socialists, all of whom hate our nation and intend to destroy our nation.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

If we started taxing religious entities when they incurred a profit, we would not have the church of the enlightened french fry on the street corner.
If we started do this one thing we would take care of a lot of those who are coming to this country just to funnel money. We have created this tax shelter for those smart enough to use it and use us. it is time to clean this up. It would probably make me the most hated person in the country but it would be worth a try.

Instead of showing everyone how we detest Islam, we should be showing them how we tolerate all religions. A land of religious prejudice is oppressive to all, even those in the majority, who must fear being viewed as heretical with every public utterance about God.

Franklin is from the evil seed of his right-wing, white-supremacist "Christian" father

I am the most stupid, ignorant poster on this thread (the title of most mean-spirited I will leave to others). I am ignorant of what debate there is to have in the most religious country in the world about the placement of a house of worship on private property in a non-residential neighborhood. The First Amendment trumps all debate. Some religious Americans want to make an old coat factory into a house of worship and community center. Anyone with the barest knowledge of history knows what will happen in the play's second act when the first act accuses a religious group of being a fifth column. The controversy, which was a non-controversy a year ago, indeed, endorsed by Laura Ingraham and others, has only blossomed in order to turn bigotry to votes in November. Then, it will disappear from the news again.

The established media have not been giving anti-mosque or anti-Muslim sentiments an uncritical platform. They have been criticizing the opposition as Islamophobes all the way. In fact, this piece is part of that effort. Meanwhile they suppress most analysis of Islam itself and its founding principles in an effort at Kumbayaism.

If any criticism of Islam, in a land of free speech, polarizes Muslims, the fault lies there and not in the free exercise of our Constitutional rights. Furthermore if such polarization occurs to the point of violence, the fault lies in those who become violent, not the talkers. That goes for cabbie attackers or bombers.

al-Qaeda benefits either way.

If Americans accepted the mosque without debate, al-Qaeda would celebrate this as a victory mosque, representative of the defeat of Americans.

If Americans reject the mosque until imams and mullahs speak out against radical muslim on the public stage - forcefully and often, al-Qaeda would celebrate this as a division within the country and endorsement for radical Islam by silent imams and mullahs.

We can't win for losing. In the end, al-Qaeda will use the final decision of the location of the mosqe to its advantage and the silent imams and mullahs in the US will only serve to encourage them.

Is it any wonder Americans are suspect?

Mr. Kohlmann, some of us are no longer interested in the least in placating, appeasing, or pleasing Muslims but would prefer a more sincere, open, and brutal dialogue with the religion of peace and its followers.

"if mainstream media continue to give such views an uncritical national platform"
---

Are you suggesting censorship of what is shown in the news? By whom, "cultural consultants?" Let it be. History marches inexorably forward and perhaps the next great war will be against Islam. After all, it has happened before, only not by us. The only thing we can do is to watch events unfold and view them as history in the making.

We Americans like to believe we are masters of our fate, but this doesn't apply to events of historical importance. We can't design history, events have their own inherent dynamic. So watch and enjoy, and think of yourself as a chronicler of our age, a Suetonius anno 2010. The future will know the truth, maybe ...

I'm not worried about Al-Qaeda, haven't you heard, the US Government is way worse than Al-Qaeda!

So, the question is, is protesting the mosque playing into the hands of the evil U.S. government, or would building the mosque embolden that dastardly U.S. government?

HELLOOUTTHERE comments, "what will al-qaeda think of this and will it make muslims want to kill us?"

Precisely. Obama, Pelosi, Bloomberg, Kohlmann, left liberals, all would have us fall to the ground then lick the camel dung stained sandals of Islam.

Look at those lunatic left liberals demanding we submit to Islam, or else. Their actions border on treason, much as Pelosi threatening us with a federal investigation for not complying with demands of left liberals.

Ours is America. This is my nation, this is my home, I will live free or die defending our freedom just as so many patriotic Americans did before us.

Americans have been fighting, dying, shedding blood, sacrificing for centuries to defend our America, and Obama and his left liberals are standing upon Capitol Hill waving French white flags of surrender before Islam.

People like Kohlmann are so stunningly ignorant to believe we can appease Islam by handing over our America. Islam will only be appeased by our handing over our heads.

Over my dead body. I am a patriotic American, I love our America.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

There are alternatives to fundamentalists religions of all types.

**DANCING THE DREAM by Michael Jackson**
(published 1992)

WINGS WITHOUT ME:
“When all life is seen as divine, everyone grows wings.”

GOD:
"It's strange that God doesn't mind expressing Himself/Herself in all the religions of the world, while people still cling to the notion that their way is the only right way. Whatever you try to say about God, someone will take offense, even if you say everyone's love of God is right for them.
For me the form God takes is not the most important thing. What's most important is the essence. My songs and dances are outlines for Him to come in and fill. I hold out the form. She puts in the sweetness.
I've looked up at the night sky and beheld the stars so intimately close, it was as if my grandmother had made them for me. "How rich, how sumptuous," I thought. In that moment I saw God in His creation. I could as easily have seen Her in the beauty of a rainbow, the grace of a deer bounding through a meadow, the truth of a father's kiss. But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God's creation embraces me. We are one."

Click on the Video, (or copy it and paste it in your address bar)
and Be at PEACE: The song is “Fly Away”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caZCGlpozns

if we don't let this mosque be built muslims will kill us, if we draw pictures of their prophet muslims will kill us, if we don't allow their women to cover their face in public muslims will kill us, if we don't segregate our swimming pools and gyms muslims will kill us, if we don't do everything muslims want us to do they will kill us

so to be good americans we must censor ourselves before we speak or do anything and ALWAYS first think... what will al-qaeda think of this and will it make muslims want to kill us?

TO FIND OUT WHAT IS BEING TAUGHT IN AMERICAN MOSQUES, SIMPLY GOOGLE: PAMPHLETS FOUND IN AMERICAN MOSQUES

please check out http://www.islamicsolutions.com/if-it-is-extreme-it-is-not-islam/

Evan F. Kohlmann writes, "Franklin Graham portrayed...insidious cancer devouring the civilized world...nauseating description...'devilish' faith...nonsensical"

Stop watching Graham. Flip your channel over to reruns of The Three Stooges. Your sissy boy whining and crying is annoying.

Kohlman continues, "...occurred to me that some viewers might not recognize that Graham speaks only for...."

Other words you assume Americans to be ignorant gullible gits. How very arrogant of you. I am insulted.

Kohlman blathers, "...al-Qaeda's leaders understand better than most...."

How do you know this?

Kohlman continues to blather, "...al-Qaeda...have embarked on a desperate search for English-speaking envoys...."

How do you know this?

You are inventing "facts" to support your rant. This is deceit on your part.

Kohlman you are sorely lacking acceptable logic. You rant, "...have attempted to paint a gloomy and foreboding future for Muslims in the U.S...."

How ignorant of you. Islamic terrorists will twist and spin anything America does to fit their murderous agenda.

We accept this Ground Zero mosque, we accept and welcome Muslims, al-Qaeda will jump up then scream, "Islam is being westernized! Americans are destroying Islam from within! Kill the infidels!"

"Westernized", this is precisely the basis of honor killings of women and little girls right here in America.

Kohlman, I cannot wrap my mind around a person like you being so ignorant. No matter what course America follows, Islamic terrorists will spin, twist and lie, just as you are doing.

You simply don't get it. al-Qaeda intends to kill us no matter what we do.

Kohlman leaves me stupefied, "...should this kind of radicalization eventually occur, then we really have nobody but ourselves to blame for it."

For crying out loud, you are more ignorant than Imam Obama and Comrade Pelosi: "America is too blame for everything! We must apologize to Islam for our being the Great Satan!"

Kohlman, do us all a favor, move to Iran; you are clearly not an American.

Your article, Evan F. Kohlmann, amounts to nothing more than musical flatulence.

Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation

Perhaps the simplest way to respond to your assumptions about what drives opposition to things "Islamic" is to post here something prompted by the piece, referenced below, that appeared earlier, on
washingtonpost.com > Opinions > Outlook & Opinions

Your Comments On...
Five myths about mosques in America
In addition to spawning passionate debates in the public, the news media and the political class, the proposal to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York has revealed widespread misconceptions about the practice of Islam in this country -- and the role of mosques
in particular.
By Edward E. Curtis IV

Gonzage1 wrote in response:

Resistance to erection of a Cordoba mosque at a controversial site
Has less to do with myths about Muslims in the U.S.
Than about the reality that the Islamic culture
Has generated uncivilized behavior in great excess.

When that reality is juxtaposed with a proposal to build a mosque
Near a site where culturally deprived Muslim adherents committed wanton murder on 9/11/2001,
It is quite understandable that when asked, "Do we want a mosque there?",
Non-Muslims logically would say "No, we don't want one!"

Only when the culture that generates jihadist insanity
Rejects the practices that result in such generation
Will folks acculturated to ways of the west come to view the Muslim world as benign
And accept its manifestations without (at least latent) disapprobation.
**
And more directly to an argument in the present piece that suggests the nature of the current mosque-related debate may tend to alienate younger Muslim-Americans, it seems important to note that such alienation tends to find fertile ground primarily in individuals predisposed by cultural factors to resist conceptual "assimilation" in a freedom-loving western culture.

One, of course, could go on at length without being able to articulate adequately what there is about a culture, anchored in the middle ages, that generates large numbers of individuals who are responsible for murder and mayhem all over the world. If there is a report of terrorism, it almost inevitably includes references to the terrorists as Muslim in persuasion. How to change that scenario?
Quien sabe.

@Jhimmi: "It's absolutely mind-boggling."

As is the one-dimensional simplicity of your thinking process. You understand this Bin Laden-echoing Sharia apologist is the second largest owner of FOX Corp, right?

Instead of helping a true reformer, like Irshad Manji, or Zuhdi Jasser, the federal government, and NYC, is helping a Sharia and Hamas apologist who echoes Bin Laden when you says the US is worse than Al-Qaeda.
It's absolutely mind-boggling.

hubris and lack of candor to force/implant
a powerful islamic symbol in the vicinity of ground zero
to launch a rebranded version of sharia law in the US
when the memorial for the victims of the twisted atrocity still NOT build