The King of Fuh

BRUTE FORCE (in an early release on the Beatles' Apple Label): “And the Fuh King did what he wanted to do

CONGRESSMAN PETER KING: Under the freedom of religion in this country, you cannot stop a mosque, a church, a temple from being built… But also, there is a bit of a double standard there. I remember when Catholic nuns wanted to build a convent near Auschwitz and there was a worldwide opposition to that.

I’m not saying that the legal position is the same in Poland as it is in New York…But I’m saying the moral outrage that was shown over that, and that was 50 years after the Holocaust and there still was a feeling of outrage that you would have something of another religion constructed on what was considered sacred ground.

I think, less than 10 years after 9-11, I can understand the feelings that people who feel that this mosque is sort of in their face. But again, legally, I don’t see any way it could be stopped.

Congressman King complains of a double standard in treatment between Catholics and Moslems.

I agree.

Following up the enormity of 9-11 was most of my life's work for nearly a year; the memory of what occurred, mere blocks from my place of work, and how it changed my City is something I will never forgive nor forget. Perhaps among the most minor of those changes, but significant to me, was the loss of the Pakistani-owned WTC newsstand (not to mention its employees) where I used to buy my copy of New Republic.

Congressman, anyone who (as you did) thinks it is laudable for Sinn Fein to murder innocents, cannot condemn others for doing the same, and then damn the innocent members of the same faith, without showing himself to be a miserable bigoted bag of natural fertilizer.

And that's not to mention the boneheaded Bill Donovan-type undertones of implicit Jew baiting in your Auschwitz comparison.

The site of the proposed mosque is not hallowed ground, Congressman, it's an abandoned department store blocks away from hallowed ground, in short walking distance from another mosque and a row of Halal cab stands. In the concrete canyon it will inhabit, the Coat Factory Masjid might as well be in Cleveland  for all the impact it will have on the visitors to Ground Zero.

And now, people are asking the government to bring down its heavy hand using inapplicable laws like the Landmarking Code as pretexts, in violation of the Bill of Rights and our civil rights laws. Why can you not condemn this tactic?

And if it’s really about the Holy Mother Coat Factory, how do you account for the similar lynch mob mentality in Sheepshead Bay and Staten Island? Is the point, in the aftermath of 9-11, that the only way to honor those whose deaths were caused by despicable murderous zealots intent upon destroying our nation and all that it stands for is to render New York City a Muslim Free Zone? If so, then the terrorists really have won, because they have succeeded in making us surrender all that is dear to us.

Congressman King, will you at least condemn the louts trying to prevent free exercise of religion in the outer boroughs, or is that also to be analogized to some insensitive act of the Jews?

Nothing could be more un-American than trying to impede the right of American to worship or fail to worship the false G-d of their choice, including the false G-d of Atheism. And nothing would better illustrates why our values are superior to those of Al-Qeda than would welcoming this House of Worship (and 92nd Street Y-type Community Center, in a community woefully short of such facilities) to Lower Manhattan.