Saturday's NYTimes offered an update on the controversial proposal to build a mosque and Islamic center near the ground zero site in New York, characterizing it as a "fierce national debate about the limits of religious freedom."
City officials, particularly Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, have forcefully defended the project on the grounds of religious freedom, saying that government has no place dictating where a house of worship is located. The local community board has given overwhelming backing to the project, and the city’s landmarks commission is expected to do the same on Tuesday.
…
Still, the arguments against the Muslim center appear to be resonating. Polling shows that a majority of Americans oppose building it near ground zero.Resistance is particularly strong among some national Republican leaders. In stump speeches, Twitter messages and op-ed articles, they have turned angry denunciations of the plan into a political rallying cry that they say has surprising potency.
Slate's Will Saletan posts a timeline of the way the debate has been racheted up by national political figures over the course of the last month.
Stephen Prothero writes that the Anti-Defamation League's decision to oppose the mosque gives up the "moral high ground" the group has held.
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite asks if "fear of Islam is the new McCarthyism"?
