On "Park51"

“Park51” is the initiative undertaken by Sufi Muslims to build a community center to serve lower Manhattan and to build bridges torn up a decade earlier in the 9/11 attack. A great deal of disinformation is being spread about this plan. The proposed community center will have a prayer room, but not a mosque.

The branch of Muslims proposing the center are Sufis, and I suspect that their new center will be more likely than any other building in Manhattan to be bombed by Islamist extremists. Moderate Sufi imams are in the frontline AGAINST the extremes of Islam, not fronts for it, and the extremists hate them because of it. The Imam behind the building of this community center has been an outspoken critic of the extremists, and has worked tirelessly for the cause of peace. The proposed community center is to further that mission--bolstoring those who deplore the violence and wish to promote peace from within the Islamic religion (which as President Bush often reminded us, is the vast majority of muslims in the world).

I commend to you a reflection written by an Episcopal priest serving near "Ground Zero" and the proposed "Park51" project:

http://bit.ly/dgu3r8