Obama slammed, praised for backing NYC mosque
I Will Not bow to people who make God into a cruel, heartless god in the name of Allah. Just in time for their RAMADAN. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THIS COUNTRY OBAMA? and I and others say this with opinions that we should still have!
President Barack Obama was compared favorably to America's first president and castigated as uncaring Friday after defending plans to create a mosque two blocks from New York's ground zero.
"Muslims have the right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama told a White House dinner crowd celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Friday.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has defended the 13-story, $100 million Islamic center, said Obama's remarks reminded him of George Washington.
"Two hundred and twenty years ago this week, the Father of Our Country penned his famous letter to the Jewish Community of Newport Rhode Island or, as he called them, 'the Children of the Stock of Abraham.' President Obama's words tonight evoked President Washington's own August reminder that 'all possess alike liberty,'" Bloomberg said.
But Bloomberg wasn't speaking for all New Yorkers.
Rick A. Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor and a former member of the House of Representatives, issued a statement late Friday that the president was still “not listening to New Yorkers,” The New York Times reported.
“With over 100 mosques in New York City, this is not an issue of religion, but one of safety and security,” he said.
'Insensitive'
And Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., agreed. "President Obama is wrong,"
he said.
"It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero," he said. "While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much."
The mosque has drawn vocal opposition from some relatives of Sept. 11 victims and local and national Republican leaders. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, is also opposed.
Conservative politicians such as former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, a Republican former Speaker of the House of Representatives, also have called for the project to be scrapped.
Ahead of the dinner talk, Palin asked on her Twitter account: "Will Obama express US lingering pain & ask Muslims for tolerance by discouraging 9/11 mosque while he celebrates Islamic holy month tonight?"
Later she re-Tweeted without comment a headline about Obama's mosque endorsement.
Mark Williams, a controversial tea party political movement supporter, said the center would be used for "terrorists to worship their monkey god."
Williams was publicly ousted by the National Tea Party Federation last month after posting a satirical letter supposedly from "the Colored People." He resigned as spokesman of the Tea Party Express in July and told reporters he would focus on fighting the mosque plan, the New York Daily News reported at the time.
Sharif el-Gamal, the developer on the project, told The New York Times, “We are deeply moved and tremendously grateful for our president’s words.”
A building on the site of the proposed center is already used for prayers, and some worshipers there on Friday night discussed the president’s remarks, the Post reported.
Mohamed Haroun, an intern at a mechanical engineering firm, told the Washington Post, “What he should have said was: ‘This is a community decision. Constitutionally, they have the right to do it, but it’s a community decision and we should see what the local community wants to do.’”
'Anti-Muslim hysteria'
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based
advocacy group, expressed satisfaction to The Washington Post that Obama had
finally decided to address the controversy.
The modern horror audience is wise to our tricks this lets it in on the gag.
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