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Mayor Bloomberg Lauds Religious Liberty While Others Challenge Mosque Decision

By Howard M. Friedman

Following yesterday's vote by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission that essentially refused to block plans to build a mosque and Islamic Center near Ground Zero, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, in view of the Statue of Liberty and surrounded by religious leaders on Governors' Island, praised the Commission's decision and gave an impassioned defense of the American tradition of religious liberty. Here are some excerpts, but the full text is worth reading:

Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a City that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue ? and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion..... In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion ? and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780's.... 

This morning, the City's Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted not to extend landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned..... The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship. The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right....This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another. The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves ? and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans ? if we said 'no' to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

Meanwhile, the American Center for Law & Justice, which represents a New York firefighter who survived 9-11, announced it would file a petition in state court challenging the Commission's vote as an abuse of discretion.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on August 04, 2010 (boomark / email).