Excerpt:
The lower Manhattan community board 1 chair, Community Board 1, voted overwhelmingly to support the Islamic cultural center to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero when the project was presented to our board in May.
I stand by my vote.
That said, the project has now become a symbol of discord and dissidence, the white hot emotional center of a volcanic shouting match. Raw nerves have been exposed on both sides of an ugly religious and ethnic divide - and the gulf between supporters and opponents has only grown with each protest, each argument, each accusation.
Both sides claim the moral high ground - sustained on the one side by religious freedom and the other by preserving the sanctity of hallowed ground.