Amidst all of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, people have forgotten how much has yet to be rebuilt at Ground Zero. Consider the case, for example, of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, crushed when the south tower fell.
It’s been almost nine years since 9-11, and the church still has not been rebuilt. Church leaders have the blueprints drawn and are ready to rebuild, but bureaucrats won’t cooperate, and the church can’t get rebuilt.
The church has for several years wanted to build the new St. Nicholas a block northeast of its original home on Cedar Street. But doing so would require trading land with the Port Authority, and an agreement has proven elusive. In the meantime, the church designed a domed marble complex that would be six times the size of its original home, and far more expensive.
Both St. Nicholas and the Port Authority are eager to resolve the issues quickly, especially since the authority plans to pick a contractor to build the southern perimeter wall for the entire site this summer, and it needs title to the church’s property to proceed. But officials involved in the talks say there remain substantial differences over the size of the church complex and the amount of money the Port Authority will contribute to building it.
“We understand the church’s mission,” said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority. “It is part of the history of the site and we want to maintain that. We just need to put the project in the right context.”
So an expensive Christian church gets tied up in bureaucratic red tape, while a $100 million mosque super-center is waved right on through? Liberal politicians are lining up by the boatload to show their support for the Ground Zero mosque, but I don’t hear too many of them advocating for St. Nicholas to be rebuilt. Instead, the bureaucrats have gotten in the way of the rebuild. The mosque mysteriously doesn’t have that problem; in fact, it was fast-tracked. Mayor Bloomberg and members of his Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0 to allow construction of the Ground Zero mosque, but New York bureaucracy is standing in the way of letting a Christian church get rebuilt. What does it say about this country that we can build a mosque at Ground Zero, created by bloodthirsty Muslim extremists bent on violent jihad, but can’t rebuild a Christian church?
Bryan says: Absolutely terrible! Our nation’s leaders are turning their back on the God that provided us with this great nation. What a slap in the face! Funny how these same Libs cry about “Seperation of Church and State” and yet find no problem licking the boots of a religion not of the Judeao-Christian tradition. Jehovah will only put up with so much before He turns His back on us.
Will says: Now that is an excellent question and one that I hope many people will be asking from here on out.
Dennis Miller suggested the other day we let the Imam build a long, skinny mosque the length of the Mexican/American border and conveniently located there.
The man comes up with creative solutions, I’ll give him that 😀
Ed Stafford says: I totally agree with Bryan’s 8-18-10 response. I would like to add this cause and effect comment. Our nation’s leaders — those who drive the politics / bureaucracy — allow nothing to happen unless it benefits their personal wealth and money supply. As the saying goes “follow the money” and find a large part of the core of our nation’s corruption.
fsteele says: Because — according to the NYT story you linked — the Christian church wants the Port Authority, which oversees reconstruction at the Ground Zero land, to trade them a site in ‘ground zero’ 7 times bigger than their old site, and to pay $55 million of their $75 million new church. Also of course they need permission from the Port Authority to do ANYTHING at all in the actual Ground Zero area.
Cordoba isn’t asking Port Authority help and doesn’t need Port Authority permission, because Cordoba is NOT in ‘ground zero.’
On Monday, the Port Authority acknowledged that many parts of the sprawling reconstruction project — including the new PATH station, a 9/11 memorial and several office towers — faced delays of a year or more and cost overruns into the billions. With 26 interrelated projects squeezed onto 16 acres in Lower Manhattan, a delay or dispute at one project is almost certain to create problems at adjoining projects, the report concluded.
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In the meantime, the church designed a domed marble complex that would be six times the size of its original home, and far more expensive.
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The church wants the authority to provide roughly $55 million toward the estimated $75 million cost of rebuilding St. Nicholas. The Port Authority in turn wants the church to scale back its plans, move the location slightly and raise more money privately.
Jon says: Is the city, state or federal government funding the mosque? NO.
The Cordoba House community center/mosque is being funded privately, as most churches, temples, synagogues and mosques are. Of course, you want to jump on the argument that if an Imam wants to build a Mosque, and gets to, so should the Greek Orthodox Priest.
The problem is that the separation of church and state expressly prohibits the government or any of its agencies (the Port Authority) from funding, assisting, hindering or censoring any religious organization, movement or practice (provided we’re not talking about Thuggee human sacrifice).
All that said, it boils down to these facts.
1) Cordoba is being built outside Ground Zero, which is government property.
2) The port authority is a government agency. They may wish to help a church rebuild, but the Constitution prohibits them from granting special exception to six times the property they lost. The government is also prohibited from paying for any of the church’s reconstruction costs.
3) Muslims, not just the psychopaths who boarded those airplanes and hijacked them, but innocent ones unaware of the plot in motion died on that day.
4) If a small handful of men claiming to be muslims commit an act of terrorism, it does not make the whole of Islam terrorist. Muslims are not by default terrorists. There are 1.57 Billion Muslims in the world, according to the Pew Forums estimate. There’s roughly 310 Million Americans to date. If Muslims really were all warmongering hate machines, bent on death, destruction and global dominion, the only force that could stop them is China, and if they’re only fighting the USA, guess who won’t come to our rescue! CHINA
4)a) Corrolary: If we accept that all Muslims are terrorists by logic that some Muslims flew planes into the trade towers, by default, we must conclude that Catholics are terrorists. I cite Timothy McVeigh and the Irish Republican Army as exhibits A and B.
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