{"id":216,"date":"2010-07-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html"},"modified":"2010-07-27T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T08:00:00","slug":"are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html","title":{"rendered":"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Updated to add the link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/nicole-neroulias\/tim-brown-interview-not-a_b_660122.html\">my Tim Brown interview<\/a>&nbsp;and the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/07\/qa-with-sharif-el-gamal-about.html\">Q&amp;A with the Park51 developer of the Cordoba House plan<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Check out my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/index.php?\/rnstext\/quietly_another_mosque_operates_in_shadow_of_ground_zero\/\">Religion News Service story <\/a>about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/07\/quietly-another-mosque-operate.php\">Cordoba House, the proposed&nbsp;&#8220;Ground Zero mosque.&#8221;<\/a>&nbsp;(A native New Yorker, I can&#8217;t help but channel&nbsp;that classic <em>SNL <\/em>&#8220;Coffee Talk&#8221; sketch: It&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/07\/27\/nyregion\/27nyc.html?_r=1&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\">neither at Ground Zero, nor a mosque<\/a>. Discuss!) For more on the criticism of this proposal, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/nicole-neroulias\/tim-brown-interview-not-a_b_660122.html\">check out my Q&amp;A with retired NYC firefighter Tim Brown <\/a>(see photo), one of the opposition leaders to the project. For a counterpoint, check out my colleague Aziz Poonwalla&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/07\/qa-with-sharif-el-gamal-about.html\">Q&amp;A with one of the developers, at Beliefnet&#8217;s City of Brass&nbsp;blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-right\" alt=\"brownwtc.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/import\/brownwtc.jpg\" width=\"336\" height=\"448\" \/><\/span>I&#8217;ve spent hours walking around lower Manhattan lately, marveling at all the changes in the past year, let alone decade. Personally, given that my Sept. 11 experience involved frantically waiting for my now-husband to make his way from the ash cloud up to my Morningside Heights apartment,&nbsp;I&#8217;m relieved to see that life did, after all, go on down there. Professionally, after talking with the nervous worshippers at Masjid Manhattan, a mosque that has quietly been operating near Ground Zero for years, and meeting with Brown, I wondered how many more&nbsp;shiny new buildings and decades <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/facts-vs-feelings-in-the-ground-zero-mosque-debate.html\">it will take before a visible Muslim organization could move there without&nbsp;much fuss.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that will be the real sign that our wounds have healed. On the other hand, where do you draw the line between healing and moving on (but not forgetting)? And on a related note:&nbsp;is&nbsp;Islamophobia easier or harder to overcome in extremely multicultural yet directly-hit New York City than in <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/fun-friday-jon-stewart-takes-on-fox-news-again-this-time-about-nasa-muslim-outreach-mosques.html\">other mosque-protesting places like Wisconsin and Tennessee<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Updated to add the link to my Tim Brown interview&nbsp;and the Q&amp;A with the Park51 developer of the Cordoba House plan.) Check out my Religion News Service story about Cordoba House, the proposed&nbsp;&#8220;Ground Zero mosque.&#8221;&nbsp;(A native New Yorker, I can&#8217;t help but channel&nbsp;that classic SNL &#8220;Coffee Talk&#8221; sketch: It&#8217;s neither at Ground Zero, nor a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Updated to add the link to my Tim Brown interview&nbsp;and the Q&amp;A with the Park51 developer of the Cordoba House plan.) Check out my Religion News Service story about Cordoba House, the proposed&nbsp;&#8220;Ground Zero mosque.&#8221;&nbsp;(A native New Yorker, I can&#8217;t help but channel&nbsp;that classic SNL &#8220;Coffee Talk&#8221; sketch: It&#8217;s neither at Ground Zero, nor a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-27T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/brownwtc.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)? - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)? - Belief Beat","og_description":"(Updated to add the link to my Tim Brown interview&nbsp;and the Q&amp;A with the Park51 developer of the Cordoba House plan.) Check out my Religion News Service story about Cordoba House, the proposed&nbsp;&#8220;Ground Zero mosque.&#8221;&nbsp;(A native New Yorker, I can&#8217;t help but channel&nbsp;that classic SNL &#8220;Coffee Talk&#8221; sketch: It&#8217;s neither at Ground Zero, nor a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-07-27T08:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/brownwtc.jpg"}],"author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html","name":"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)? - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/brownwtc.jpg","datePublished":"2010-07-27T08:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-07-27T08:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/brownwtc.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/brownwtc.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/07\/are-all-ground-zero-mosques-created-equally-objectionable.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Are All Ground Zero Mosques Created Equal(ly Objectionable)?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. 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