Ground Zero Mosque - APPROVED

From the Wall Street Journal:

The New York City Landmarks Commission unanimously voted Tuesday to deny landmark designation to the site of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, paving the way for the controversial community center and worship space to rise two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The commission's chairman, Robert B. Tierney, said the building at 45-47 Park Place "does not rise to the level of an individual landmark." The 11-member panel is appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has vehemently defended the mosque as an example of religious freedom.

The proposed community center has become the center of an intense national controversy, prompting opponents to call on the commission to grant landmark status in hopes of blocking the plan.

The commission's vote – taking place under heavy police presence at a theater at Pace University in Lower Manhattan – is viewed as the principal municipal hurdle for the mosque, which is now free to move forward. Commissioner after commissioner said the building, constructed in 1857-58, is not unique and lacks the characteristics necessary for a landmark. Manhattan has more than 11,000 landmarked properties.

From the New York Times:

The vote on Tuesday was free of much of the vitriol that had been part of previous hearings. One by one, members of the commission debated the aesthetic significance of the building, designed in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo style by an unknown architect.

Later in the day, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has forcefully defended the planned mosque, praised the landmarks commission’s vote.

“To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists,” he said, standing with religious leaders in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Bloomberg doesn't get it.

He did hand a victory to the terrorists. They must consider this to be a victory. They must be celebrating the commission's vote. The terrorists certainly can't view a mosque at Ground Zero as a defeat. They're being rewarded for cold-blooded murder.

I think it's inappropriate for "Allahu Akbar" to be shoved in the faces of 9/11 families at the very place where their loved ones were slaughtered, innocents.

A display of intolerance would be outlawing mosques and Islamic centers in the city of New York or in the United States. That would be against our values as a nation. That would be shredding the Constitution. Objecting to this location for a mosque is not.

The problem is the line between Islam and radical Islam can be thin. Without question, there are Muslims who abhor the terrorism done in the name of their faith. IF those individuals speak out against the radicals and take care not to financially support their violence in any way, they are properly seen as victims of the Islamist movement as well.

However, it's not wrong or intolerant to be critical of the location of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero.

Actually, I think supporting that particular location is being remarkably insensitive to the tremendous loss suffered by so many on 9/11.

I wish Bloomberg and other leaders would consider their pain and show some compassion for them.