From The Washington Post --- September 11, 2010:
Near Ground Zero, mosque supporters gather to show their support
By Annie Gowen
Saturday, September 11, 2010; 4:20 AM
NEW YORK - Hundreds of supporters of the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero gathered Friday evening near the site in Lower Manhattan, where they lit candles, sang and prayed on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The participants said they came to show solidarity with the plan to build the Park51 Islamic Center on Park Place, about two blocks from the World Trade Center site. The project has sparked fierce debate in recent weeks about whether it was appropriate to build such a facility so near the "hallowed ground" of the trade center's fallen twin towers, and it has prompted fears among some that anti-Islam sentiment is on the rise in the United States.
Organizers said they decided to hold the gathering a day before the Sept. 11 anniversary so that Saturday could remain a day of solemn mourning for those killed in the attacks nine years ago.
Yet that seemed unlikely Friday night amid the noise and activity around the Trade Center site, where a 9/11 memorial is under construction. As the crowd of Islamic center supporters came together, they were joined by reporters and passersby alike, while others arrived at Ground Zero to prepare for a protest rally and counter-protest march, both scheduled for Saturday.
There will also be an official remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero that Vice President Biden is expected to attend.
"This is the appropriate time to remember who we are and what we stand for," said Susan Lerner, the spokeswoman for the activist group Common Cause, one of the organizers of the gathering.
Another of the organizing groups was September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, with about 250 survivors of those killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Kathy Page, a retired Brooklyn educator and a Christian, said she was moved to come to support the center's effort after taking a class on understanding Islam a few years ago from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man leading the push for the cultural center.
"I found him to be a gentle and spiritual man," she said.
She looked around at the crowd, clutching candles and little American flags.
"My feeling is that I just had to put my body someplace with other people and stand up with my presence for tolerance," she said.
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2 comments:
The sanity of these Rethug b*stards! That's treason and everything else that I've thrown at those criminals. They're INCITING CIVIL WAR/UPRISING!! The ones listening and supporting these thugs are just as guilty!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/12/sharron-angle-danny-tarkianian-second-amendment-remedies_n_714011.html
"A surrogate for Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle is saying that advocating "Second Amendment remedies" in order to effect political change is going too far and revealing that he was pressured to push such comments by some Republicans while running for the Senate.
In a Sept. 8 interview on the Mike Wiley Radio Show, Danny Tarkanian, who lost the GOP primary to Angle, said such statements -- which were floated by Angle -- were "a little bit extreme." From the exchange, captured by Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun:
Reid's been attacking her on her comments saying that we have Second Amendment remedies, and I don't know exactly what quote that he's been using, and even if it's an accurate quote because he's misquoted her sometimes, that she had said we ought to use Second Amendment remedies if Congress doesn't change their direction. Now, I've been on the campaign trail, and I heard a lot of people say to me, you know, why do we have our Second Amendment rights, it's to, so the public can overthrow the government if they fail to respond to the government's will. That may be all good and well, but I'm not going to take the position that we need a civil uprising to overthrow our government"
2nd part of previous article:
"What's perhaps more interesting is his admission that many people in the Republican Party were encouraging him to advocate a civil insurrection if Congress doesn't change hands. "I had people that were upset at me in the campaign that I wouldn't go as far to agree that there should be a civil uprising," he said, adding that there were "people in the Republican Party that, when I was campaigning, wanted me to go that far to say that." He was sure to add that he wasn't necessarily saying that Angle was calling for these extreme measures."
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