As I understand it, this building will serve as an Islamic community centre, include worship rooms. It is not at the Ground Zero site, but two blocks away - such was the force of the impact on 11th September that some parts of one of the planes managed to do serious damage to the building that day.
Under the auspices and spirit of the US Constitution, the owners of Park51 have full right to build a community centre on the site they have chosen, which can include as prominent and large an Islamic worship area as they like. Freedom of expression including religious expression is plainly allowed within the US Constitution. That goes for those supporting and those opposing the project. Let's face it too, I doubt whether or not real estate in Manhatten is that cheap. This is probably the best place they have available to build if they're going to.
There are some questions about the funding involved, but that is beyond my ability to comment upon. Apart from that the reasons for not putting a site including Islamic worship rooms on a site that close to Ground Zero are fairly similar to my not founding a British cultural centre on the Garvagh Road in Belfast. I would have every legal right to, it would not be a centre designed to throw the history of The Troubles in the faces of the locals, and possibly it would be beneficial when it came to healing the divisions between Nationalists and the British state. I still wouldn't volunteer to lay the foundation stone.
I'm not going to start dictating who people can worship. I am a Christian, but I believe that the argument is best won by persuasion and prayer rather than plain shouting. The builders of this project can have the best of intentions, but that still doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea.
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