Wasn’t the Pentagon also a target on that day? Isn’t the presence of a "temporary mosque" or "chapel (in which Muslims can pray)" an affront to the people who died there? I jest, of course, in the direction of the "be sensitive" argument—as if a religion that had nothing to do with 9/11 should be "sensitive" to the paranoid bigotry that associates them with the terrorists in the first place.

I think this points out the inanity of this big flare-up. (“inanity “ kind of rhymes with Hannity doesn’t it? Actually,  I haven’t heard anything from Sean of late.  I guess Glen Beck has stolen his thunder)  If a chapel in which Muslims can pray ONSITE (not two blocks away,  but ONSITE) doesn’t raise any white flags amongst the Islamophobes,  why would a mosque,  two blocks away,  raise such a ruckus. 

It seems that the more visible the Muslims as a culture are,  the more overt the reaction.  (ie., it’s fine that there are Muslim vendors all over the streets in the Ground Zero neighborhood,  that “blends them in” to the overall American culture of  capitalism, but raise up their presence as a culture in themselves,  and locate that culture as centered in a faith-culture blend — Muslim activity center — then the paranoia sets in).  “Oh,  if we let that grow,  they’re gonna start planning terror” (as if,  as Jon Stewart pointed out,  those who plan terror would benefit from making those plans physically closer to the location of target—-  like: “at least those “plans” would be rendered ineffective if they were drawn up “further away”).   But seriously,  the thing that is so reprehensible in all this is the ignorant assumption that this is the stuff from which terrorism arose.  The Muslim faith.  Again,  that’s like saying that Christianity itself is suspect because the members of the KKK grew up in the church.