Articulated » Blog Archive » Hundreds protest ‘mosque’, get address wrong
Hundreds protest ‘mosque’, get address wrong
New York, NY – Hundreds of protesters gathered Sunday at the wrong address in lower Manhattan to protest the building of “The Ground Zero Mosque”. The construction, which will be a community center, will have about 15% of it’s space devoted to a prayer space for Muslims. It is this prayer space that has been criticized on many extreme right wing media outlets, including Fox News. The protesters gathered at the World Trade Center site, just outside the Cortland Street subway station, to voice their outrage, unaware that the community center is actually planned to replace an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory store on Park Place, 3 or 4 blocks north.Many passers-by were quite confused by the protest, and several spectators tried tell members of the crowd that the “mosque” was actually going to be a few blocks away. The angry crowd did not take well to being told they were wrong, accusing the spectators of being the agents of an Evil Empire trying to trick them into moving their protest away from sacred ground. “We’ve got a right to protest wherever we want, and you can’t stop us!” cried a man identified only as Al from Cincinnati.
“I was only trying to point them to the right location”, remarked Steven Driscoll, a resident of the Tribeca neighborhood. “But hey, if they want to protest here, that’s cool too. That end of Park Place isn’t really very attractive.”
The man behind the proposed community center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has been relatively silent throughout the controversy. Asked about his silence, he replied that he had no idea who was trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero, but isn’t him. The Imam added “I believe there is already a development plan for Ground Zero, and it doesn’t include a mosque. So I’m not sure what everyone’s complaining about.”
A group of people supporting the construction of the community center, and religious tolerance in general, were allowed to hold a demonstration a couple of blocks away at another erroneous location.
No matter your political affiliation or viewpoints about the cultural center; if you are so blinded by rage and vengeance, perhaps you deserve to look a bit ridiculous.
I can not begin to understand how people may feel at losing folks on 9/11. I do think I have a right to an opinion as an American. The people died that day to Islamic extremists that do not hold our values, including freedom of religion.
"Historically freedom of religion has been used to refer to the tolerance of different theological systems of belief, while freedom of worship was defined as freedom of individual action." -Wikipedia
If we apply the same standard to other nutjobs, then no churches may be built near the site of the Oklahoma City bombing since McVeigh did it as revenge for Waco... right?
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" -Emma Lazurus, 1883
