MPAC Rep Debates Proposed Mosque Near Ground Zero On CNN
July 15, 2010
Yesterday, MPAC's Director of Policy & Programming Edina Lekovic appeared on CNN to discuss the latest round of objections to a proposed mosque and community center near the site of Ground Zero in Manhattan.
Appearing on the Ali Velshi show, Lekovic debated retired New York firefighter Tim O'Brien about the motivations behind the Cordoba House project, and its meaning for Muslims' relations with other New Yorkers.
The Cordoba House proposal has won broad support from New York City Mayor Bloomberg, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Catholic Archbishop of Manhattan Timothy Dolan, and the Manhattan Community Board which voted almost unanimously in favor of the mosque.
"I think it's fair to say if somebody was going to try, on that piece of property, to build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming. And the fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it, too," Mayor Bloomberg said on Monday. "Democracy is stronger than this. You know the ability to practice your religion was one of the real reasons America was founded."
Archbishop Dolan wrote recently: "It is not acceptable is to prejudge any group, or to let fear and bias trump the towering American (and for us Catholics, the religious) virtues of hospitality, welcome, and religious freedom."
The Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - made up of 200 families - recently released a statement welcoming the Center, which is intended to promote interfaith tolerance and respect, which is stressed is consistent with fundamental American values of freedom and justice for all. Their statement said, in part: "We believe, too, that this building will serve as an emblem for the rest of the world that Americans stand against violence, intolerance and overt acts of racism and that we recognize that the evil acts of a few must never damn the innocent."
