{"id":10783,"date":"2010-08-03T18:55:33","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T01:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10783"},"modified":"2010-08-03T18:55:33","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T01:55:33","slug":"mosque-quotes-mayor-bloomburg-and-iman-feisal-abdul-rauf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10783","title":{"rendered":"Mosque Quotes: Mayor Bloomberg and Iman Feisal Abdul Rauf"},"content":{"rendered":"

I express my heartfelt appreciation for the gestures of goodwill and support from our Jewish friends and colleagues. Your support is a reflection of the great history of mutual cooperation and understanding that Jewish and Muslim civilizations have shared in the past, and remains a testament to the enduring success of our continuing dialogue and dedication to upholding religious freedom, tolerance and cooperation among us all as Americans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

—Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf<\/a>, one of the group planning to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York. “The pro-Israeli lobby JStreet collected over 10,000 signatures in support of the center that were delivered to the Landmarks Preservation Commission ahead of its vote on the Cordoba House.”<\/p>\n

To which I say: Go Team Jew!<\/em><\/p>\n

Mayor Bloomberg gave a good speech<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9\/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.<\/p>\n

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.<\/p>\n

“On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?’<\/p>\n

“The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.<\/p>\n

“Of course, it is fair to ask the organizers of the mosque to show some special sensitivity to the situation, and in fact their plan envisions reaching beyond their walls and building an interfaith community. But doing so, it is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together, and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9\/11 were in any ways consistent with Islam.<\/p>\n

“Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith. And they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I express my heartfelt appreciation for the gestures of goodwill and support from our Jewish friends and colleagues. Your support is a reflection of the great history of mutual cooperation and understanding that Jewish and Muslim civilizations have shared in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,91,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-free-speech-censorship-copyright-law-etc","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}