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August 20, 2010

Opposition to planned mosque in Flroence result of bigotry

Anonymous The Independent The Daily Independent Fri Aug 20, 2010, 06:00 AM EDT

ASHLAND — Hundreds of miles west of the great debate over a poposal to build a mosque and education center just two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhatten, opposition is building to plans to build a much smaller Muslim worship center on 5.5 acres in Florence.

While good people may legitimately disagree on the wisdom of building such a large Muslim worship center so close to the site where radical followers of that faith led the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that destroyed the World Trade Centers, religious bigotry clearly is the source of the opposition to the proposed mosque in northern Kentucky. Those opposing it are stomping all over the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the freedoms we Americans hold most dear.

An anonymous flier being circulated in the northern Kentucky cities across the Ohio River from Cincinnati is critical of plans to build the mosque. It includes a newspaper article about the mosque and encourages residents to take action to stop construction, without saying what that action should be.

The nonprofit Mercy Foundation Inc. bought the land for the mosque in 2008 and a local construction firm has been contracted to build the facility beginning next spring.

The same rights that allow Catholics, Presbyterians, Southern Baptists and Jeohovah Witnesses to build places of worship in our neighborhoods also allow Muslims to build places to gather for prayer. Indeed, if freedom of religion means anything it is the right for all to worship — or not worship — as they please.

As far as we know, no mosques are being planned for our corner of Kentucky, but that day surely is coming as more people of the Muslim faith move into this region. When it does come, we hope that first mosque is built in this community without a word of opposition.

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