Opinion : Not everyone who opposes \'9/11 Mosque\' does so out of fear or prejudice

Sometimes it’s hard to take sides on an issue because many of the people most loudly involved are so terribly wrong.

The proposed Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero – dubbed the 9/11 Mosque – is such an issue. Many of the people who say the center should not be built are wrong.

But many of the people who criticize those who oppose the center are just as wrong.

President Barack Obama was wrong for so strongly defending the center to the Muslims attending the White House Ramadan dinner. He was wrong because he told the audience all about their “rights” without mentioning a word of their responsibilities to understand the pain caused – and still felt keenly in New York City and beyond – by people who said they were acting in the name of Allah.

Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are wrong to make it a political issue, to think that as leaders who live thousands of miles from NYC, they have the right to tell New Yorkers what to do or how to feel.

That a Time Magazine writer wrote that everyone who opposes putting the center at that site only feels that way because of bigotry and fear; he was wrong, too.

The talk show hosts – mostly conservative—are wrong for the way they demagogue on the issue on the radio.

The bloggers – mostly liberal – are wrong in the way they demagogue on the issue online.

The Washington Post writer who suggested that government has the right to stop the center is wrong, too.

The politicians who say Congress ought to get involved are the most wrong of all.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s how our Bill of Rights begins. And while we can make the argument that some modern politicians (and modern courts) do not understand the Constitution that way it was intended, the First Amendment is still quite clear.

Regardless of what we think of Imam Fausal Rauf, he (or anyone else) has the right to build a house of worship virtually anywhere. Imam Rauf wants to build his cultural center at the site of the Burlington Coat Factory.

Up until Sept. 11, 2001, that building was used to make and/or sell the items for that well-known business. But landing gear from one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center crashed into the Burlington Coat Factory. That company’s website location page simply says that this center has been closed since Sept. 11, 2001.

Anybody who reads the First Amendment has to admit that say Imam Rauf does have the right to build his center anywhere, including the Burlington Coat Factory Building.

However: Building anything in the name of Allah on any site directly affected on 9/11 can do nothing but offend, inflame, and hurt the people who still feel the pain of that day.

People like Sally Regenhard. I talked to Sally a few days ago. She’s got that brash NYC accent that we hear in the movies. But she also has a point.

Her son, Christian, was a NYC fireman who died trying to save people from the Twin Towers. Not one tiny part of Christian’s body was found; he is simply listed as “unaccounted for.” “A lot of people are still deeply wounded by what happened,” Sally told me. “Let’s give some sensitivity to the 9/11 victims and survivors, and their families and the first responders.”

Sally’s a Catholic, and she recalls a time when the Catholic Church surrendered its rights out of understanding the pain of those who have suffered.

In the late 1980s, some nuns wanted to build a Catholic convent at Auschwitz, in an effort to try to bring healing to the survivors of the Holocaust.

But many Holocaust survivors protested, and the convent ended up in another location. Sally says the same sensitivity should be shown to 9/11 families. “Why here? Why now?” she asks. So, what should we do about the “9/11 mosque?” Or more specifically, how should Americans feel about it, since for most of us, there is nothing we can do but express our opinions?

First, I say, everyone needs to calm down and realize that many good and decent people have thought carefully about this issue and come to different conclusions. There are 9/11 family members who disagree with Sally on this issue; and their pain, of course, was and is as intense as hers.

Second, we need to keep the politicians out of it, except for the leaders of New York City.

But third, I think it’s appropriate for us to stand in agreement with our fellow Americans in New York City. They still remember all too well the horror of 9/11 – and the way that Imam Rauf called “American policies” an “accomplice” of those horrible atrocities. And most of them have the same thing to say about his project at that site: Not him. Not there. Not now.

He has the right to build his Islamic Center there.

And they have the right to oppose it, and to pressure investors, politicians and others involved to remember the pain of 9/11, and to keep sacred ground sacred.

They (and we) do not react that way out of fear or bigotry or prejudice, but out of respect for the memories of people like Christian Regenhard and those who still grieve for them.