St. Nicholas and the Cordoba Mosque

One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when Mayor Bloomberg, President Obama and their ilk appeal to freedom of worship as their rationale for supporting the construction of an imposing 13 story mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan.

Has the left finally seen the light--gotten religion, so to speak--and started to actually defend the right of people to worship as they please, even to the point of bending over backwards to remove bureaucratic hurdles such as zoning laws, environmental impact studies, etc. in order to facilitate the construction of their places of worship?

Tell that to the folks at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was once located across the street from Ground Zero and destroyed under the collapse of the south tower.  It was the only church destroyed in the disaster.  It seems that negotiations with the Port Authority for rebuilding their church had become hopelessly mired and finally have broken down altogether. 

To be fair, perhaps there are many competing and complicating issues that are delaying approvals for the reconstruction of St. Nicholas, just as there are endless delays, cost overruns and other competing interests impeding progress on numerous other construction projects near Ground Zero, including the 9/11 memorial, a World Trade Center Transportation Hub, and numerous other office buildings.

But then again, plans for the imposing, 13 story Cordoba mosque proposed by a radical "Imam" -- who believes that the U.S. should become Sharia compliant and that the U.S. bears some responsibility for the 9/11 attacks -- seem to be moving forward without impediment from the Port Authority.

Do you remember when shortly after 9/11 we all stood tall with defiant resiliency, determined to rebuild everything, perhaps even reconstructing  twin towers even higher than the original World Trade Centers, as a means in part to rebuild our morale and also to send an in-your-face message to the terrorists who attacked us?  Now we don't even seem to have any interest in investigating whether those same terrorists are bankrolling the proposed Cordoba mosque as an "in-your-face" to us. 

This is beyond surreal.

Bibliography:

Human Events, 08/09/2010

New York Times, 07/03/2010

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church Website