NYC panel clears way for Park51 Project
That sound you hear is a bunch of heads exploding on the wingnut right:
NEW YORK — A city panel Tuesday cleared the way for the construction near ground zero of a mosque that has caused a political uproar over religious freedom and Sept. 11 even as opponents vowed to press their case in court.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to deny landmark status to a building two blocks from the World Trade Center site that developers want to tear down and convert into an Islamic community center and mosque. The panel said the 152-year-old lower Manhattan building isn’t distinctive enough to be considered a landmark.
The decision drew praise from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who stepped before cameras on Governor’s Island with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop shortly after the panel voted and called the mosque project a key test of Americans’ commitment to religious freedom.
“The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts,” said Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. “But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves, and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans, if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.”
The vote was a setback for opponents of the mosque, who say it disrespects the memory of those killed at the hands of Islamic terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. Jeers and shouts of “Shame on you” could be heard after the panel’s vote.
The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative advocacy group founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, announced it would challenge the panel’s decision in state court Wednesday.
ACLJ attorney Brett Joshpe said the group would file a petition alleging that the landmarks panel “acted arbitrarily and abused its discretion.”
The proposed mosque has emerged as a national political issue, with prominent Republicans from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich lining up against it. The Anti-Defamation League, the nation’s most prominent Jewish civil rights group, known for advocating religious freedom, shocked many groups when it spoke out against the mosque last week.
The League said building the Islamic center “in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain — unnecessarily — and that is not right.”
Bloomberg said Tuesday that denying religious freedom to Muslims would play into terrorists’ hands. He said firefighters and other first responders who died in the Sept. 11 attacks had done so to protect the U.S. Constitution.
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