Tawfiq Hamid, a Muslim reformer, believes that "Radical Muslims and their sympathizers want to raise the giant mosque as a sign of victory of the Jihadists over the US."

He has issued a challenge to the leaders of the GZ Mosque:

He is challenging them to renounce such Sharia favorites as killing apostates, stoning adulteresses, wife-beating, and killing homosexuals, and to condemn countries that carry out such practices. He asks if they would condemn doctrines of calling Jews "pigs and monkeys" and the belief that Muslims must kill Jews before the end times. He asks if they would renounce Jihad and condemn the early Islamic conquests as un-Islamic. He also asks whether they would request that Saudi Arabia would allow churches and synagogues to be built in their country. He asks if they would respond unequivocally to this challenge both in English and Arabic.

Mr. Hamid has proposed a sensible test to see if the mosque organizers are truly moderate, and if they truly stand for tolerance as they claim. I think it's a really good idea. After all, we wouldn't want to be fooled into thinking these mosque organizers are all for tolerance if they really aren't, would we?

Newt shouldn't have to demand an end to the double standards. Muslims themselves should be demanding that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan start treating Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus as full equals. If we would hear as much of an outcry from Muslims about that double standard as we hear about how they somehow have to have a mosque at this particular location, then maybe we would believe they really are moderate and tolerant.

A few Muslims have indeed taken a firm stand against this double standard, and against other disgusting aspects of Sharia, but not very many.

The Republicans are not terminally stupid. They are terminally greedy and corrupted by power. Introducing xenophobic non news is exactly how Hitler came to power. Also, if they are so stupid, why are they poised to take back the congress in November. Its not stupidity, it's using hate to fuel their reelection.

23:37

Sufis come in all stripes. Some Sufis engage in violent jihad. This particular Sufi (Imam Faisal) openly supports Sharia, which is Islamic supremacist law. Don't be fooled.

Fascinating how a piece like this one brings out all the xenophobic, Islamophobic ignorance in the comments section.
Most of the statements here are so fatuous it would be a waste of time to start refuting them.
Let us not forget, ignorance and fear are the fertilizer the fascists feed on, and they are in a feeding frenzy right now that would put a school of sharks to shame!

If stupidity were a terminal affliction, a very great many people now living would be dead. It is the perennial impediment to peace and prosperity. The tool of language should theoretically have helped eliminate a lot of the ignorance that informs hysterical movements, but alas! The pundits and many politicians do such violence to its application that, in the present controversy, a proposed "community center" that would house a basketball court, a culinary school and a mere incidental "room for prayer" is referred to as a "mosque" -- presumably complete with minarets, domes, arches and muezzins calling from the turrets. When people willfully corrupt communication by altering definition itself, they become as dangerous as any armed malcontent, for the damage they do is more insidious and ultimately more fatal.

I'm just gonna short circuit your whole article
this way: The muslims are f'd up, the
christians are f'd up, the jews are f'd up, the
RSS hindus are f'd up, got it ace? not just one of them, not just two of them, ALL of them are f'd up.
The world has problems, we don't need bastard
Bush gettin' in our way and we don't need
bastard bin Laden gettin' in our way! We need
some decent policies, not a lot of b.s. !!!

"They hate us for our freedoms", so maybe we're just making friends by eliminating the one about worship.

I am myself unwilling to renounce that freedom for any set of believers, whether in Islam, in fundamentalist Christianity, or in the more recent 9/11 tomb worship. We should focus a bit on the last.

Why not a discussion of the civil religion that creates sacred spaces like "ground zero" and grants power to ignoramuses who disrespect the Constitution?

The ignorance truly is pathetic.

Anyone, be they muslim, christian, or other who thinks that this is going to be a "symbol" of anything is absolutely misinformed and talking from their ass. 15 stories inside an already existing building (which once held a Burlington Coat Factory storefront) two blocks from the site (and we're talking huge Manhattan blocks here, not handful-of-houses suburban blocks here) won't be large enough or visible enough to symbolize anything, positive or negative. Anyone who thinks differently has simply no idea about New York City at all and has no business spouting misinformed nonsense.

15 stories in a bible belt suburb town, sure that'd dominate the hell out of everything, especially if it was a free-built structure. In lower Manhattan, built into an already existing building, you won't even see the damned thing until you're right on top of it. You could visit Ground Zero and never even know it was there. If you did already know it was there, you would have to use google maps or something to find it.

To be a "symbol", it'd have to be easily visible and prominent. It isn't. By Manhattan standards, that's a tiny but of nothing tucked in a corner.

The only people making a "symbol" out of it are those overhyping it for political purposes.