Ground Zero

[talon]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/11/ny-governor-offer-state-property-mosque-built-farther-away-ground-zero/?test=latestnews

It's hardly at "ground zero" as so many people protest and claim. It's actually several blocks away. Having lived in a large city, I know that something several blocks away may as well be in another city. People mostly stay within their small areas and get into their little routines. After a few years, assuming no one makes a huge fuss over it, most people will forget it's even there and fewer will ever even visit it.

My biggest question is: Are there enough Moslems to fill such a huge proposed mosque?

I am pleased that the imam refused the offer of state property for the building of a mosque.

I don't think state property should ever be used for religious buildings and I don't care what the religion is.

I am not happy about religious property being tax exempt regardless of the use to which it is put. Just because a religion/church owns the property is no reason to exempt it from paying taxes. So many religions behave as businesses now they really ought to be treated as such.

I have no objection to tax exempt status applying to education and charity pursuits so long as the education is available to everyone and the charity applies to everyone in that category up to the limits of the charity's resources. A food bank, for example, should feed everyone who comes until they run out of food. (Yes, I know, some of the people getting free food there aren't really poor, but honestly, the scammers getting free food are a drop in the bucket compared to the ones who really need it and I'd rather feed the few scammers in order to be able to feed the hungry without making the truly needy feel as if they were being interrogated for that food or force them to prove they are needy.)

To an extent, the government needs to stay out of this.

And what's up with the Christian protests? Do they want to see their tactics employed against them? Because they act as if they are jonesing for a holy war. Whatever happened to "turn the other cheek" and didn't they learn anything from their early persecutions in Europe? Are they truly so uneducated?