It has been called Islamization of America, the “Ground Zero Mosque” or call it the “Cordoba House.”

Regardless of the name, this controversy has sprung up all over the media recently. Despite the obvious fact that Muslims can build the mosque, and they should.

This resulted in well known public figures such as Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and our very own President to speak out against and in favor of the mosque causing backlash among the American public. What followed was a mass output of misinformation about Islam and its teachings.

This so called “Ground Zero Mosque” was proposed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is a well known moderate Muslim that aided the Bush Administration in building interfaith relations abroad in the Middle East.

Just as quickly as this debate began, misinformed news organizations were looking for excuses to paint Imam Rauf as an extremist after a comment he made two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. But his comments held true; in an interview on 60 Minutes he said, “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”

It is a known fact that Muslim dominated countries in the Middle East are not particularly fond of the foreign policy that the United States follows; Glenn Beck himself had admitted to it before on his show. However, this one quote was misconstrued and led people to believe that Imam Rauf is an extremist and therefore his proposal to build a mosque is a part of his radical agenda.

However, the “Ground Zero Mosque,” now known as Park51 is actually an Islamic Community Center 14 stories high with a basketball court, a kitchen for cooking classes, classrooms, a mosque on the very top floor and various other uses. This isn’t a mosque; it’s the equivalent to a YMCA.

The location of where the center is to be built is exactly two blocks from Ground Zero, and consequently cannot be seen from there. While the American public is regurgitating the cries of “insensitivity” on the Muslims’ part, they fail to acknowledge the strip club and sex shop that are also located nearby the hallowed ground.

This is no longer an issue about First Amendment rights; it’s about the inability of America to accept and understand a religion. Even with extensive information on the Internet and billions of Muslims worldwide, one would think that the information acquired about Islam is genuine; however, this is not the case anymore.

Islam in the media is portrayed as radical extremists bent on killing and converting Americans. The media is at fault for causing a strain between the widespread public and Muslims, it’s as if history is repeating itself once again.

No longer is it about the Irish, Jews, African Americans, or Japanese; the new wave of xenophobia is aimed at Muslims. The mosque is just the beginning to Islamophobia.
This is understandable looking from a New Yorker’s perspective, where one might feel the Muslims backing the mosque are being insensitive, but what’s the excuse in Tennessee, Connecticut, Kentucky and California?

There is no excuse; the arguments made countering the Park51 serve as a catalyst to Anti-Mosque campaigns across the nation.
Not only that, anti-Islam rhetoric from former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, right-wing blogger Pamela Geller, who ignited the controversy, and, not surprisingly, Fox News, has instilled fear and hatred towards Muslims living in America.

Newt Gingrich said that Muslims’ building a mosque at Ground Zero is akin to Nazis’ protesting in front of the Holocaust Museum, and Sarah Palin asked of all Muslims in an infamous tweet to “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.”

Muslims have every right to build a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero; why should they have to go the extra mile to ensure that they have no ties to terrorists? Why should Muslims collectively hold the guilt to the 9/11 attacks, which were instigated by individuals who used religion in the wrong way to act as a crutch to justify their actions?

Let us not forget that the Ku Klux Klan was the largest terrorist organization operating within the United States, and their emblem was the cross. You don’t see Christians bearing collective guilt over what an organization with over a million members did. There’s one thing that people need to be reminded of: terrorists orchestrated the attacks, not Islam the religion.