NEW ZEALAND HERALD: You'd think in America's bible belt there wouldn't be a big demand for copies of the Koran. But you can bet in Gainesville, Florida, they're flying off the shelves as fast as pregnancy tests after the school prom.
Because despite being denied a fire permit by the local fire chief, the Dove World Outreach Centre is planning a book burning session to mark the September 11, 2001 attacks. That's right, the church is hosting "International Burn a Koran Day".
It's anti-Islamic but it's not an isolated case. Muslims, who make up only about 2 per cent of the nation's population, are seeing their right to practise their religion challenged across the United States. And nowhere more than in New York's Lower Manhattan where plans to build a 13-storey Islamic centre have set off street protests and given Republicans a grandstanding opportunity that is too hard to resist.
Opponents, who say it is offensive to those who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks, have labelled the centre the ground-zero mosque, even though it is more a centre with a prayer room and is two blocks away from the World Trade Centre site.
The American Muslims behind the project have given it the name Park51. No doubt opponents will point out that you only need to change a few of the letters around for it to read Death To America.
The Islamic centre will cost US$100 million ($142 million) and feature, among other things, a swimming pool and basketball court. If bomb-making facilities are planned, they've so far kept that quiet.
The driving force behind the project has been the Kuwaiti-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has been used by the Bush and Obama administrations to spread a message of religious tolerance in Muslim countries.
But to Republican Newt Gingrich he is an extremist trying to spread "moral confusion about the nature of radical Islamism". Continue reading and comment >>> Duncan Gillies | Saturday, August 28, 2010
