The American Promise: What Should be Done About "Ground Zero" Mosque

It was 9:30 in the morning. I was 15 and was feeling unusually girly earlier that morning so I wore my hair down and wore a skirt instead of my usual jean shorts. Fittingly I was sitting in my 10th grade World History class. As our teacher turned on the TV I knew that life and indeed the course of this world would be changed forever. The date, September 11th 2001 and almost nine years later a group of American Muslims wish to build a mosque/community center near the site of these attacks and I say we let them.

I wasn’t planning on ever writing anything about this on here. I do feel strongly that we should let them build the mosque but I didn’t feel that this was the right forum. I felt this way until the last two days when I read two opinion letters in my local newspaper from two men, who shall remain nameless, state their extreme dislike of the idea.

Now I am not oblivious. I can understand why many people would be against this mosque going up. Many of them say things like “they are our enemy” or “why should we accommodate them when they won’t build churches or temples in their lands”. Those are of course valid concerns but the biggest problem is that this is America. America is supposed to represent what is best about the human race. We are supposed to be tolerant of all people. For the religious people out there I point you to Leviticus, “Love thy neighbor”.

Religious tolerance and freedom of expression are two of the most important ideas that helped in the founding of this country. I know it’s hard but it’s important to show the whole Muslim world that we know that they are not all against us. This is the time when what America truly stands for gets tested and if we deny this group the basic right to worship how they want then all we are doing is showing them that we are as intolerant as our enemy.