Refelection on Islamic Cultural Center in NYC

The discussion we had last Friday was something that gathered I think for us as a class a lot of different opinions and valuable arguments. Alright so from the start I was all for the building of the mosque/Islamic Cultural Center in New York City. In spite of and notwithstanding it being only a few blocks away from Ground Zero. I felt that it was their right to build it there, wherever they wanted. Hindering them from constructing the mosque would only be basically confiscating their rights, prove us to be ample hypocrites. We say that we believe in religious tolerance and the freedom of speech but, by not allowing the building we would only make ourselves look bad and we would set a bad example for other countries. See this is what I had thought of at first. And overall I was intending to stick with this opinion of mine. But as the talking kept going lot of things we brought up and it made me overhaul what I had been thinking. From what about the other mosques in the city, the saying 'Out of Respect', the Pearl Harbor incident, other countries being forgiven, our Religious and even more than that our cultural Tolerance towards Muslims, and the list goes on towards the Media having a role in its Rhetoric. By the end of the discussion my opinion changed to be in the middle. Overall, I strongly think that America just needs more time to be accepting of the Muslim culture and ways and that maybe perhaps over time this change will happen and we will be able to move on from what Muslimphobia we as most Americans have.