The results of which are wildly cheered among some Christian fundamentalist groups.

The construction of a new one {mosque} purposefully at the site is a very different thing.

If a building can instigate so much hatred and fear in Americans, we are no better than those who chose to attack builidings to make a point.

The people who freaking live in the neighborhood where this center is to be built are not offended by these plans, nor are they fearful of a Muslim presence in the community, so this seems to boil down to just one more occasion to make sure there is no chance that anti-Muslim sentiment will be going away any time soon.

Yes, please let's demonize people on the basis of their religion - that is just so in the spirit of this country, isn't it?  Double bonus - a lot of these people are also brown!  I mean, it's just so un-PC to be openly anti-African American, so if you don't like people of color, who better these days than Muslims - and let's not forget Latinos - they're taking over, you know?

Are we just so shallow, so convinced of our own moral and social superiority that we feel entitled to engage in this constant demonization of one group or another?  Are we all so afraid we might one day end up on the bottom of some heap that we have to make sure we identify and go after others to make sure we aren't?

I look at stories like this and think we have not only not made progress, we are taking some giant leaps backward, into behaviors and beliefs so many have worked so hard to change.  And this is the result?

Holy Wars is about two men with two different ideologies, both deeply rooted in fundamentalism - Christianity and Islam. The film follows Aaron Taylor, an evangelical Christian Missionary from the Bible Belt, and Khalid Kelly, an extremist Muslim Irish convert living in London. Both men believe that an apocalypse is inevitable, after which their religion will rule the world. Over the course of tracking their lives from the inception of the "War on Terror" through the election of Barack Obama, one of the men goes to the darkness of uncompromised hate, the other towards the light of a better understanding. Holy Wars is an extraordinary, thought provoking portrait of two radical believers who are transformed by events in our changing world.

There are many factions of Islam that teach they are much better than you you Infidel.  Both of those factions kick off the wars, and love every minute of it.

It's we "infidels" who have invaded and destroyed many, many, many more countries with unecessary wars than all the factions of Islam in the world combined--all to show them how much better we are than they are, excuse me, and to bring them our wonderful "democracy" (while destroying their countries and making lots of them die in really horrible ways). Oh, and most of those people we're currently doing this to are Muslim (although we've certainly spread the love far and wide and don't seem to discriminate when it comes to kicking off wars and loving it). We should be grateful that they even want to build a mosque on our godforsaken soil, after everything we've done to them.

And if we're going to get hysterical about mosques breeding terrorism -- personally, I'm going to get a hell of a lot more hysterical about the blind eye we turn toward the funding of illegal occupation and terrorism that gets a daily pass. Stuff like this:

A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas.

...

Take the Capital Athletic Foundation, run by the disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In its I.R.S. filings, the foundation noted donations totaling more than $140,000 to Kollel Ohel Tiferet, a religious study group in Israel, for "educational and athletic" purposes. In reality, a study group member was using the money to finance a paramilitary operation in the Beitar Illit settlement, according to documents in a Senate investigation of Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding clients and bribing public officials.

Mr. Abramoff, documents show, had directed the settler, Shmuel Ben Zvi, an old high school friend, to use the study group as cover after his accountant complained that money for sniper equipment and a jeep "don't look good" in terms of complying with the foundation's tax-exempt status.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html?pagewanted=all

They should not be tax free.  

All religious buildings should be built on their own private land, far away from center centers and populated areas.