Don't get tired of the cultural center/mosque uproar because, actually, we're getting somewhere.

Given that the next 72 hours mark the end of Ramadan, start of the Jewish New Year, anniversary of 9/11 and first public comments from Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, it's a good moment to have an exchange, not a diatribe.

Last week I posted a piece that generated an avalanche of comments, pro and con. . It argued that we cannot allow the sensitivities of 9/11 families -- or even a majority in a poll -- to veto the right to freely exercise one's religion. "There's no 'but' in the very first amendment."

Below are a few representative, condensed, critical comments and my responses. With an astonishing 85% of Americans saying that they're following this issue closely, heated exchanges are sharpening and narrowing disagreements. Brandeis was right -- "Sunlight is the best of disinfectants."
Mr. Green, you miss the point. What the opponents of the mosque ask is that it be moved to a different location. The refusal of the developer to even consider an alternative site shows an insensitivity to the families of the 9/11 victims.
One could just as logically ask about insensitivity to Muslim families who want to pray. And why do many outspoken 9/11 families just assume that the motives of those behind the center/mosque are bad? How do they know? Indeed, why would we allow any emotionally aggrieved group to nullify the rights of others? Imagine this letter 42 years ago: "Dear Dr. King, While we respect your desire to march for voting rights, it would be appreciated if you would move your march a few miles away from Selma since many white residents are worried about their property values and the risk of increased crime. Thanks for your sensitivity to the caucasian majority. The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce."
Ok Mark, then why aren't you defending my right to speak out against the mosque with the same zeal you defend their right to build it? Do you REALLY believe your own words or not? Hmmm?????
Each side has a First Amendment right. But while your side seeks to deny Muslims their rights, our side allows Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich to exercise theirs. Liberalism means tolerance; those conservatives stand for intolerance. Big difference.
Only radical Muslims believe in jihad and abide by "Sharia" law, even in their own homelands. Believing that all followers of Islamic theology worship under those "old" practices is like believing that all Christians live by the "Old Testament" of the Bible. People who make accusations that "they're going to impose Sharia law on us..." are either ignorant or have another agenda.
Sean Hannity on Fox night after night takes the most medieval statements from Sharia law and then, boom, assumes that it's literally practiced by all Muslims-Americans who then want to impose it on the rest of the U.S. Sure, 2 1/2 million of them are all going to stone women and convince the other 307 million of us to go along. Catholics at the Eucharist symbolically eat the body of Christ; Orthodox Jews segregate audiences by gender - I guess both religions could theoretically force everyone else to follow their religious rituals. Not going to happen.
According to polls, a majority of New Yorkers oppose the mosque's current location by a wide margin.
So? The right to use your right to pray, speak or assemble is a right, not a possibility, not something that can be negotiated away during legislative horse-trading. When President Truman integrated the armed forces, only 7% of white soldiers favored the move. The 1st and 14th amendments are not popularity contests.
What about Nancy Pelosi's statement that we should investigate where the opposition to the Mosque is getting its money! Also, how is that Imam a 'moderate'? Saying that 'America has more blood on its hands than Al Qaeda,' and that 'we brought on 9/11 ourselves'? Thanks Mark for your piece. You have a very good heart but are naive.
Pelosi's comment was silly and political. But wrenching a couple of quotes out of context over decades from the Imam behind the project is not convincing. His 'blood on hands' comment was about Bush's unjustified invasion of Iraq, which has led to the deaths of over 150,000 civilians. His observation about "brought on 9/11" is not something I'd say but Glenn Beck also said it in 2001 about our Middle East policies. Neo-Cons often wonder why more Muslims don't denounce those who engage in terrorism in the name of Mohammed. That's exactly what the imam has done. If he's not a moderate Muslim, who is?
Hi Mark. Many of our 9/11 families have a very different picture of the mosque than the Mayor is attempting to paint! Here's a sarcastic email that's going around that makes the point: "As liberal elitists, we choose to conveniently ignore the hangings of gays, stoning of women and the regular and continued slaughtering of infidels worldwide because labeling a movement of 1.5 billion people worldwide an 'Islamic Crusade' is....well sort of politically incorrect. It's truly unfortunate that Winston Churchill perhaps never had an opportunity to enjoy cocktails in similar surroundings with Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. WW II might have had a far different ending and perhaps more Brits and Americans would now be speaking German."
As a still grieving 9/11 family member, you rail against Bloomberg and basically all of Islam. Although the Talmud has a passage that one does not disagree with a widow, you leave me no option. Yes Bloomberg periodically exaggerates something to make his point knowing that few if any will call him out on it. So I assume that some 9/11 family member(s) said something supportive to him and then, boom, he exaggerates it into "all" support Park51. But on the larger issue, he&#39;s been thoughtful and courageous in his outspoken support. </i>

Your assumption that Islam is a violent religion analogous to Nazism is a real dead end. Obviously, there is a "narrative" among many young Muslim men that the West, especially America, hates them and invades them, so they&#39;re going to get back at us. That surely describes the mind-set of the Ft. Hood and Times Square crazies. But if you and other sympathetic 9/11 families simply assume that therefore all of Islam is murderous, then you're playing right into their hands...then logically we shouldn&#39;t allow this mosque or any mosque in America.

All those in the Klan were white southerners and many in the mob Italians -- does that make all white southerners racists and many Italians mobsters?

America&#39;s been through this before. Take a look at Nicholas Kristof&#39;s New York Times column laying out how synagogues and Catholic churches were barred by local hysteria in earlier eras. If the 9//11 families are the deciders for Ground Zero, should they too decide "whether Muslims should be among those constructing the new World Trade Center which actually is on the sacred Ground Zero site or be cabbies entering and exiting the site," as another commener wrote me?

Until and if you can show that the folks behind this center/mosque are fronts for terrorism -- which is against federal law -- it should be built as a monument to freedom in America and as a signal to one billion plus Muslims around the world watching this controversy to see if we do hate them.

I draw three conclusions from the hundreds of comments I reviewed.

First, as the continuing debate exposes the wrong-headedness of group guilt, Muslim-Americans will be increasingly seen as, well, Americans with rights. Democracy is working. Second, self-proclaimed "constitutional conservatives" will have to admit that the document they tout protects Park51. It's time for them to speak up. Like Bush. Like Murdoch.

Last, since local government authorities have approved the Islamic Center and Mosque if they receive lawful funding -- the Community Board voted 29-1 in favor and the Landmarks Commission 9-0 -- 9/11 families should resist using their private grief to make public policy.