[iDumb]

Originally Posted by Blah
There is a reason you don't negotiate or back off from pursuing criminal/terrorists; regardless of the threats they throw at you.

This analogy doesn't fit. Those opposing the Mosque aren't terrorists nor are they criminals. Listen man the destruction of WTC and rebuilding it "properly" has more emotion to it than many realize. Therefore emotional aspect of rebuilding this place should be given some thoughts. I already mentioned above that, you can listen but to certain extent. If there is opposition to mosque building let's say anywhere else, i wouldn't support ever backing away. But in this case (since it's made out to be a big deal), I personally don't think it wouldn't have hurt to move to a nearby location where no landing gear fell. Like I said, there would be protest then too but then people can't play the "ground zero" card. Then opposition to Mosque building would go down substantially in my opinion.

I strongly believe that if they back off, this will lead to much worse discrimination on minorities or other religious beliefs (specifically islam).

How exactly? You are backing off voluntarily. Your argument would be valid if we are talking about backing away from protesting our rights to build a mosque there when let's say our "permit for it is taken away" as opposed to protesting the protestors (what we are doing right now).

I don't think this particular place itself is important, it got important as soon as they started to make a big deal out of it. This is more than just discrimination towards islam. This is a "Dividing ideology" that the religious right of the republican party brings up to rile up their base almost every time there is an election going on. The idea is to ignite the "us versus them" mentality that republicans play so well.

Don't disagree. But this does little as counter arguments.

Backing off now would deal a moral victory towards bigotry and discrimination for the religious right. As a matter of fact, backing off is the worst thing they could possibly do.

I disagree. They should have backed away long ago but they didn't because they wanna make money not peace.

As a Muslim, I don't give a damn where I pray as long as I have a place of worship. The bad thing now will be that the new WTC (whatever the plan is) will not have a prayer room for Muslims because of this. Because that will be seen as a "mosque". Who are these developers?? I hate the fact that their actions reflect on the whole religion. There is something Muslims aren't doing right - I don't know what it is. And all Muslims backing anything Islam without much thoughts on the repercussions of it aren't doing much justice to themselves either. Maybe majority of Muslims should come out and do a protest to say hey let's build this thing two building away.

You don't see everybody calling Christians pedophiles because of some priests. Do I stop sending my kids to classes that are taught my Christians? No. What are they doing right?