Mosque Near Ground Zero Tests U.S. Freedoms, Bloomberg Says

[cal04]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-25/mosque-near-ground-zero-tests-u-s-freedoms-bloomberg-says.html

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that to deny Muslims the right to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site would undermine America’s values and damage its image.

“We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims,” he said in remarks to guests at his annual Iftar dinner, in which Muslims break their daily dawn-to-sunset fast during the month of Ramadan. “We would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.”

The guest list for the dinner at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s ceremonial residence, included Talat Hamdani, a Muslim who lost her son in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Other invitees included Sharif el-Gamal, developer of the lower Manhattan center that would include a mosque, and Daisy Khan, who co-founded its sponsoring group, the Cordoba Institute, with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, its spiritual leader.

(snip)
“If we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom,” Bloomberg said in his speech.

[Wilms]

1. Freedom, freedom, Freedumb

For Teabaggers with an IQ slightly higher than Dick Cheney's heart rate sans pacemaker.

[palotin]

2. Compromise fighting terror with freedom?

Ok so presumably Bloomberg opposes the Patriot Act too. He can try to play the civil liberties card when he quits backing the NYPD's 'right' to stop, frisk and ID anyone they like and then store the info in a database.