THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: President Barack Obama's weekend remarks supporting the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero reverberated across the country, nationalizing a debate over the New York City project.
A number of Republicans on Sunday folded the president's remarks into their election-year narrative that Mr. Obama, a former constitutional scholar, is out of touch with the American citizenry.
The dispute over the mosque is just the most prominent in a series of debates around the country where Muslim groups have sought to build mosques. In the community of Temecula, Calif., where a proposed mosque has sparked an intense dispute, Mr. Obama's comments spurred a surge of letters to local newspapers decrying his statements. Pastor William Rench of Calvary Baptist Church, next door to the proposed mosque site, said he now expected opposition to the mosque plan to harden.
"It will galvanize their desire for resistance to the mosque," he said. "It confirms in their minds the idea that Mr. Obama seems to be more accommodating to the Islamic world than he is for the Christian representation in America." Mr. Rench said former President George W. Bush, who also spoke of Islam as a peaceful religion, might have made similar statements, but Mr. Rench said he disagreed with those views.
Mr. Rench said initially he opposed the new mosque next door because he thought such a large structure on two acres would tower over the church. But since he has begun reading more commentary from American Islamic leaders, he said, he has grown concerned about extremist statements such as one imam declaring Islam the "dominant" religion. He said he now worried that a large mosque could attract an extremist crowd in contrast to the current local Muslim community. Continue reading and comment >>> Victoria McGrane and Siobhan Gorman | Monday, August 16, 2010
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