Imagine that Japanese Americans in the early 1950s decided to build a shrine right next to the American military base at Pearl Harbor in honor of their Japanese heritage.
Imagine that Catholic missionaries, representatives of the religion which killed thousands of Muslims during the crusades, tried to build a church in the sacred city of Mecca.
Imagine that Germans wishing to celebrate their glorious past decided to construct a monument to their military to be placed within a few yards of a camp in which tens of thousands of Jews were murdered.
If you find these projects at best a bit insensitive and at worst deeply offensive to the people who hold those places sacred then you will understand why the attempt to build a huge Muslim facility adjacent to the site of the World Trade Towers is opposed by so many Americans.
RLC
