Look at what Sam Nunberg, Deputy Director of Government Affairs at the Center for Law and Justice, said about plans to erect Cordoba House, an Islamic Cultural Center, two blocks from where the World Trade Centers once stood: "It would be like removing the sunken ship from Pearl Harbor to erect a memorial to the Japanese kamikazes killed in the attack."

He is effectively calling Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan terrorists. This husband-and-wife team co-founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement, devoted to "building bridges" between Americans and Muslims, and the Cordoba Initiative, founded to promote and provide "informed research and critical thinking regarding ways to improve the relationship between America and the Islamic world." Two people who have devoted themselves to healing the rift between the Muslim world and the West - called terrorists no matter their efforts.

At the 2009 Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality conference in Kuala Lumpur, I heard Khan and Imam Feisal repeatedly express their conviction that American democracy and Islam are in fact complementary. Islam grants property rights to women - the only religion I know of that explicitly does so - and encourages socially conscious lending, an individualistic and personal religious life, and the ethical slaughtering of animals, a flag many animal rights activists have taken up. The Qu'ran discourages proselytism, and historically, Muslim conquerors have followed this directive, unlike, say, the Crusaders. 

Most of all, I just want to point out how incredibly dangerous this all is. Activists want to have the proposed site of the new center designated a historical landmark because shrapnel from one of the planes hit it during the September 11 attacks. They openly admit they're only interested in doing this to prevent the Cordoba House from being built. Blind hatred against any member of a despised group fuels their crusade. This sounds familiar.  

Talk about a way to remember the victims of a horrifying tragedy.

No really, talk about it.