9/11 Families React to Obama's Support for NYC Mosque

As you can imagine the families of the 9/11 victims are very unhappy about Obama's expressed support for the Ground Zero Mosque.  Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the pilots of the hijacked airliners and co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America issued this statement:

Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see. Since that dark day, Americans have been asked to bear the burden of defending those values, again and again and again. Now this president declares that the victims of 9/11 and their families must bear another burden. We must stand silent at the last place in America where 9/11 is still remembered with reverence or risk being called religious bigots.

Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a “deeply traumatic event,” it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit.

We are stunned by the president’s willingness to disregard what Americans should be proud of: our enduring generosity to others on 9/11 — a day when human decency triumphed over human depravity. On that day, when 3,000 of our fellow human beings were killed in a barbaric act of raw religious intolerance unlike this country had ever seen, Americans did not turn outward with hatred or violence, we turned to each other, armed with nothing more than American flags and countless acts of kindness. In a breathtakingly inappropriate setting, the president has chosen to declare our memories of 9/11 obsolete and the sanctity of Ground Zero finished. No one who has lived this history and felt the sting of our country’s loss that day can truly believe that putting our families through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace.

We will honor the memory of our loved ones. We will protect our children, whose lives will never be the same. We will not stand silent.

Obama had the chance to make an important statement both about our constitutional values and our values of respect for others.  He could have made a statement that confirmed the right to build the mosque at the site according to our laws, but he could have also criticized the idea because of the hurt it would cause and the appearance of Muslim triumphalism it creates.  He didn't do that and instead gave it his full support, in fact he stated that our founding principles compelled him to support it, which is not only nonsense but will appear to many voters will appear as a fondness for terrorists.  Erick Erickson has some good thoughts on the issue.

This mosque will not be a place of worship, or a place of "bridge-building" as promoted by the builders, but will a lightning rod of controversy and conflict for as long as it stands. And given the emotions evoked there are some who will try to make sure it doesn't stand long.