The ginned up controversy over the building of the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan near the site of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 that is not a mosque continue to go on for some strange, unknown reason.
The controversy is confusing when you consider they have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years even closer, located just two blocks away from the proposed community center, city officials support the project and Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years. What is planned is really a community center, complete with basketball courts, a swimming pool and cooking schools. It’s essentially, a YMCA, as columnist and author Charlie Pierce pointed out. A YMIA, if you will.
"This is no more a mosque than Logan Airport is a church because it has a chapel,” he said.
Yet, the controversy gets worse and continues to divide Americans and trash the U.S. Constitution. To find out why, you just need to look at how the fear-mongering got started and who is behind it. Salon does a great job summing it up.
When it was first brought to light, even people like rightwing hatemonger and radio host Laura Ingraham endorsed it while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor," of all places. Then she apparently got her copy of the rightwing talking points.
Rightwing bloggger and bigot Pamela Geller then began misrepresenting the facts, and the vast rightwing echo chamber ran with it, and here we are today.
To get a hint at how crazy this woman really is and how much she hates Muslims, she once tried to pass off the lie that President Obama was the illegitimate son of Malcolm X. She is also a member of the anti-Muslim hate group called, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).
This hate group not only wants to stop the Islamic Community Center from being built, it wants to stop any Mosque from being built.
