There is no reason for him to get into the NYC approval rules, zoning, etc., but, of course, these are not the real issues.  The only issue is should Muslims be able to build a mosque on property they own, wherever it may be.

In a country whose first European settlers came to these shores seeking the right to worship freely the way their faith dictates, the answer is so unbelievably obvious that this "controversy" is sickening.

I worked in the World Trade Center for several years early in my professional life, and commuted through the Trade Center for many years later after my office moved a few blocks away. I still frequently commute through the PATH Station there and it is not "ground zero" to me but, as it has been for as many years as I have spent there, "the Trade Center."

I lost several  former co-workers and my next door neighbor on 9/11 and I attended funerals and memorials for several others who I did not know personally, but who were related to friends of mine.  I am entitled to no special consideration for that, but to say that I am offended by people who are building a mosque is almost obscene and unquestionably un-American.

For most of the time I worked in 2 WTC, my office overlooked a statue of a woman holding up a lamp which sits in the harbor between New York and New Jersey south of the Trade Center. I believe there is an inscription on the statue which says something about sending the tired and the poor here as well as "huddled masses yearning to be free."  It does not indicate which religions will be tolerated here and, well, thank God for that since I imagine that if such a rule existed, this Jew might not have had the opportunities he has had by the grace of this nation of ours.