9/11 Protests Over Proposed Islamic Center (VIDEO REPORT)

On the anniversary of September 11, thousands of people came within blocks of Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan to rally against and in support of the proposed Islamic cultural center.

The Huffington Post was on location to speak with both sides.

WATCH:

Comments

[IamFluff]

03:15 AM on 09/14/2010

Over 100 mosques in NYC. They oppose one and are instantly being called bigots by those who wish to silence freedom of speech and lump them in with right wing extremists and racists (and when did Islam become a race?) Nobody said they can't build it, nobody asked them not to. They politely asked that it be built a little further away and for that they are attacked by their own countrymen.
THAT is what is wrong with America.

[Musa1]

03:56 AM on 09/15/2010

That's not accurate.
There are procedures for building anything in any municipality, including public open forums. But nobody in NYC Manahattan really cared, escpecially not in the neighborhood of lower Manhattan. In fact it had a lot of support.
But this is an election year, and the GOP are great at finding wedge issues and using them to divide America and put the Democrats and moderates on the defensive.
Remember that tactic: Wedge issues?
Abortion?
Welfare Reform? Remember the claims that Ketchup is a vegetable?
That black women are having babies to get more government welfare when the majority of welfare users are whites?
Or how about black crime?
Willie Horton?

The American Dream exists because American power props up authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world who oppress their people and insure oil, gas, and Western interests are secured so the American Dream of 2.2 children and a house in the burbs can exist for another generation.

The community center in lower Manhattan aint the big issue.

[godwithin]

03:40 PM on 09/13/2010

They have the right to protest a needed community center, but is it right the thing to do? How many more attacks and stabbing people on our streets before the fear mongering anti-freedom fools get classified as the domestic terrorist group they are becoming? They keep wasting our tax money with fear mongering rallies, generating violence, where we taxpayers have to pay for added policing and innocent people pay for with they life.

[Caymus77]

03:27 PM on 09/13/2010

I wonder how many of the Anti-Mosque protesters would support rounding up all Muslims in the US and put them in camps???

My guess is it would be a significant number.

[engchina]

08:30 PM on 09/13/2010

To Caymus 77
........and maybe going a step further?
Engchina

[AlexNYC]

02:22 PM on 09/13/2010

After 9/11/01 all religions gathered together to remember thise who perished and denounce terrorism. The divisive atmosphere created by the right wing extremists has now taken the positive idea of an Islamic Cultural Center and have rebranded it as a toxic one, calling it names such as a victory mosque. Amazing how extreme rhetoric can taint the idea of tolerance into something toxic.

[asta1968]

08:53 PM on 09/13/2010

Religious zealots can always find fear and hate for what they refuse to learn about.

Funny they find all this energy (by energy I mean money donated by the ballbagging GOBP) to protest against this community center. But ask any of the protesters what they did to help with the rebuilding of the Christian church destroyed by tower I. Their answer will be I did nothing. They follow false prophets and are willing to let the word of GOD be interpreted by their 'betters'. It's really sickening.

[John Coughlan]

10:59 AM on 09/13/2010

I wonder how many protesting against the mosque are from NYC?

[Tails]

12:49 PM on 09/13/2010

That's the one number we're not being told.

[Fred Hood]

10:34 AM on 09/13/2010

my mind must work funny....the question I have never heard.....which is on the top of my list.......what did we do to these people to make them hate us so much.....study history....they do have a few honest complaints.......backing dictators.....supplying weapons....ki ll ing civilians.....putting half the country out of work......total disrespect of their culture.....to name a few

[Countess]

09:30 AM on 09/13/2010

Racism and hatred are on the rise across America and backing down now in the face of this ignorant outrage will only make it stronger but the opponents have succeeded in contaminating the entire project. We can only hope that young American Muslims will not be totally alienated from the larger society.

[LazloTu]

09:19 AM on 09/13/2010

Sad display of America on a solemn day....

I was struck profoundly yesterday by a photo of the 'hater crowd' - particularly repugnant was that of a woman, quite obese and with a most vivid display of hate on her face, mouth wide open yelling whatever, and carrying a sign that read: NO VICTORY MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO!

She, in my opinion, is representative of what is so anti-american, and what is soooo difficult to begin to change. Blind and self-righteous ignorance is the most difficult to change; what does one do??

In the words of one sage: ".... he who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool;
shun him".

For me, there ARE days when I'm embarassed to be an American; due to this growing number of bigot/haters..........

[Coydog34]

09:17 AM on 09/13/2010

Many Muslim women are darn cute!

[soo tuck choong]

11:08 AM on 09/13/2010

I guess that's why P.Muhammad tell them to wear the head-scarf?

[hackerblaster]

09:12 AM on 09/13/2010

I like what that one guy said about Muslims going to a muslim country and fighting for the US and not even able to practice their 'freedom' here. Those that are against the mosque are anti-American and against freedom.

[bluguy8]

09:39 AM on 09/13/2010

well there are also a lot of gays fighting for there country and they still have DADT .Thats taking away their freedom too

[bluguy8]

09:39 AM on 09/13/2010

their country

[WalterDog]

08:41 AM on 09/13/2010

It is so sad. They did it to Jews, they did it to Catholics, they did it to Mormons, and now they are doing it to Muslims. Even the Pilgrims/Protestants came here to practice their religion. Don't these people know history? Their ignorance is frightening.

Boy, imagine if Christians were held accountable to every crime committed in the name of Christianity.

[LazloTu]

09:22 AM on 09/13/2010

Thank you, and allow me to be #8...... !

[CarolinaYankee]

09:33 AM on 09/13/2010

Don't forget what this county did to the Japanese...... Japanese who lived here and did nothing to us.

[John Coughlan]

11:01 AM on 09/13/2010

They also did it to German and Italians but history books don't want to tell you that!

[Lisa Correa-Denoncourt]

08:22 AM on 09/13/2010

This man makes the case yet again that we need a better public education system country wide!!

[soo tuck choong]

05:12 AM on 09/13/2010

I'm sad that because of religion, the world is in a mess. It's the religious strict laws that are making the world a sad ending.
The world we live in could have been at peace, though robberies and murders and rapes could still be around, but at least it will still be a better place without the interferences of religions. And that’s why we have laws in the country.
It is religions that had killed thousands of millions throughout history. No religion will mean more total freedom of speech and expression.

[IamFluff]

03:37 AM on 09/14/2010

Amen!

[Michael44]

03:31 AM on 09/13/2010

After rumour of Quran desecration in US, Malerkotla Muslims damage church

MALERKOTLA: Hundreds of Muslims in Punjab's Malerkotla torched the furniture of a church. Malerkotla has a sizeable Muslim population. The protest was organised after a rumour spread that some Christians had desecrated the Quran in Michigan, US.


All schools and colleges have been directed to remain shut. Exams of some classes have postponed. Heavy police force has been deployed to deal with protestors.



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-rumour-of-Quran-desecration-in-US-Malerkotla-Muslims-damage-church/articleshow/6545098.cms

[TheRLeePost]

12:54 AM on 09/13/2010

I hope those family members of 9/11 victims who went to the WTC site today were not witness to the despicable rancor over the proposed Islamic cultural center. As I felt on the day of the tragic event and still feel today, the grief rendered on that day was not an American tragedy, it was a human tragedy.

I lit a candle at dusk on 9/11 and placed it on my front door stoop, while others raced to put up the American flag. They just couldn't wait until in our haste and ignorance we'd killed 10,000 more Americans in what has been a further example of the faulty human psyche which brought about 9/11.

If we owe anything to the memories of the souls who suffered in the events of 9/11, it is to understand and know the truth, the whole truth, of who is responsible, not merely for the mechanical execution, but for the acts which spawned its inception. I begin to touch on this with an article I just posted on my blog, titled 'A Parable, Anyone?' It only begins to open up a world of knowledge few in this country have contemplated. I would post it here, but it is well over the word limit of this site.

-RLee
http://therleepost.blogspot.com

[Ugonna]

10:24 AM on 09/13/2010

thank you for the link, and your post itself was fabulous. Thanks for sharing. Fanned.