Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of the project, according to a New York Times poll.
The poll indicates that support for the thirteen-story complex, which organizers said would promote moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue, is tepid in its hometown.
Nearly nine years after the 11 September attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably most cosmopolitan city still have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One-fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that compared with other American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly sixty percent said people they know had negative feelings toward Muslims because of 11 September.
Over all, fifty percent of those surveyed oppose building the project two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, even though a majority believe that the developers have the right to do so. Thirty-five percent favor it.
Opposition is more intense in the boroughs outside Manhattan (for example, 54 percent in the Bronx) but it is even strong in Manhattan, considered a bastion of religious tolerance, where 41 percent are against it.
The poll was conducted at the end of August among 892 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points. It suggested that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the center’s most ardent and public defender, has not unified public opinion around the issue. Asked if they approved or disapproved of how he had handled the subject, city residents were evenly split. While a majority said politicians in New York should take a stand on the issue, most disapprove of those outside the city weighing in: Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, among others, have tried to rally opposition to the center.
The debate over the religious center has captivated much of the city: 66 percent said they had heard or read a lot about it, and follow-up interviews with respondents showed that the topic was leading to emotional and searching conversations in living rooms and workplaces throughout the city.
“My granddaughter and I were having this conversation and she said stopping them from building is going against the freedom of religion guaranteed by our Constitution,” said Marilyn Fisher, 71, who lives in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I absolutely agree with her except in this case. I think everything in this world is not black and white; there is always a gray area, and the gray area right now is sensitivity to those affected by 11 September, the survivors of the people lost.”
Sentiments about the center appear to be heavily shaped by personal background and experiences. Those who have visited a mosque or have close Muslim friends are more likely to support the center than those who have few interactions with Islam.
More than half, 53 percent, of city residents with incomes over $100,000 back the center; only 31 percent of those with incomes under $50,000 agree. Protestants are evenly divided, while most Catholic and Jewish New Yorkers oppose the center. Age also plays a role. Those under 45 are evenly divided (42 percent for, 43 percent against); among those over 45, nearly 60 percent are opposed.
The center’s developers, and its defenders, have sought to portray opponents as a small but vocal group. The poll, however, reveals a more complicated portrait of the opposition in New York: 67 percent said that while Muslims had a right to construct the center near Ground Zero, they should find a different site.
Most strikingly, 38 percent of those who expressed support for the plan to build it in Lower Manhattan said later in a follow-up question that they would prefer it be moved farther away, suggesting that even those who defend the plan question the wisdom of the location.
Richard Merton, 56, a real estate broker who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, exemplifies those mixed and seemingly contradictory feelings. “Freedom of religion is one of the guarantees we give in this country, so they are free to worship where they chose,” Mr. Merton said. “I just think it’s very bad manners on their part to be so insensitive as to put a mosque in that area.”
Opponents offered differing opinions on how far the complex should be built from Ground Zero. One-fifth said at least twenty blocks, while almost the same number said at least ten blocks. Seven percent said at least five blocks.
“Personally I would prefer it not be built at all, but if it is going to be built it should be at least twenty blocks away,” said Maria Misetzis, 30, of the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.
As the fight over the center escalated from a zoning dispute into a battle in the culture wars, it has splintered New Yorkers along political lines. Seventy-four percent of Republicans are opposed; Democrats are split, with 43 percent for and 44 percent against.
Even though President Obama is highly popular in New York City, residents are divided over his handling of the issue (he defended the center, then seemed to backtrack slightly). Thirty-two percent approve of his approach, while 27 percent disapprove.
It is not clear, however, that any politician is successfully harnessing the strong feelings around the issue. Even though both Republican candidates for New York governor, Rick A. Lazio and Carl P. Paladino, have sought to make the Islamic center an issue in the race, two-thirds of those polled said it would have no influence on how they made their choice for governor. The poll showed that the economy and jobs remained the most pressing concerns.
Yet those who said the issue would affect their vote were four times as likely to support a candidate who is against the center than one who backs it. The intensity of feeling is greater among opponents. Nearly three-quarters of respondents who disapprove of the project say they feel strongly; only half of those who back it do so.
“Give them an inch, they’ll take a yard,” Ms. Misetzis said. “They want to build a mosque wherever they can. And once they start praying there, it is considered hallowed ground and can’t be taken away. Ever. That’s why we’re having this tug of war between New Yorkers and the Islamic people.”
John Dewey, 65, of the Rego Park section of Queens, expressed his view in more practical terms. “We can’t say all Muslims are terrorists,” Mr. Dewey said. “There is a huge population of Muslims throughout the world, and we will have to deal constantly with them in the future. If we make enemies constantly, then we will constantly have war.”
The furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero keeps giving us new reasons for dismay. As politicians and commentators work themselves and viewers into a rage, others who should be standing up for freedom and tolerance tiptoe away.Rico says 'very bad manners'? That's putting it mildly. And what's with the habit of the NYT of not captializing Ground Zero? They'd never refer to the 'white house' without capitals...
To the growing pile of discouragement, add this: A New York Times poll of New York City residents that found that even this city, the country’s most diverse and cosmopolitan, is not immune to suspicion and to a sadly wary misunderstanding of Muslim-Americans.
The poll found considerable distrust of Muslim-Americans and robust disapproval of the mosque proposal. Asked whether they thought Muslim-Americans were “more sympathetic to terrorists” than other citizens, 33 percent said yes, a discouraging figure, roughly consistent with polls taken since 11 September 2001. Thirty-one percent said they didn’t know any Muslims; 39 percent said they knew Muslims but not as close friends. A full 72 percent agreed that people had every right to build a “house of worship” near the site. But only 62 percent acknowledged that right when “house of worship” was changed to “mosque and Islamic community center.” Sixty-seven percent thought the mosque planners should find “a less controversial location”. While only 21 percent of respondents confessed to having “negative feelings” toward Muslims because of the attack on the World Trade Center, 59 percent said they knew people who did.
It has always been a myth that New York City, in all its dizzying globalness, is a utopia of humanistic harmony. The city has a bloody history of ethnic and class strife. But thanks to density and diversity, it has become a place like few others in this country, where the world rubs shoulders on subways, stoops, and sidewalks, where gruff tolerance prevails and understanding thrives.
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are two pinnacles of American openness to the outsider. New Yorkers like to think they are a perfect fit with their city.
Tolerance, however, isn’t the same as understanding, so it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts. That includes Carl Paladino and Rick Lazio, Republicans running for governor who have disgraced their state with histrionics about the mosque being a terrorist triumph. And Rudolph Giuliani, who cloaks his opposition to the mosque as “sensitivity” to 9/11 families without acknowledging that this conflates all prayerful Muslims with terrorists, a despicable conclusion.
As the site of America’s bloodiest terrorist attack, New York had a great chance to lead by example. Too bad other places are ahead of us. Muslims hold daily prayer services in a chapel in the Pentagon, a place also hallowed by 9/11 dead. The country often has had the wisdom to choose graciousness and reconciliation over triumphalism, as is plain from the many monuments to Confederate soldiers in northern states, including the battlefield at Gettysburg.
New Yorkers, like other Americans, have a way to go. We stand with the poll’s minority: the 27 percent who say the mosque should be built in Lower Manhattan because moving it would compromise American values. Building it would be a gesture to Muslim-Americans who, of course, live here, pray here, and died here, along with so many of their fellow Americans, on that awful September morning. But it’s all of us who will benefit.
But someone (no, not Rico) came up with the solution: bury a dead pig (what the hell, a dozen pigs; they're cheap) under the proposed site of the mosque. Not self-respecting Muslim would think of building a mosque atop a pig...
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