The location is NOT at Ground Zero - it is two big city blocks away, in a busy commercial area.  You cannot see Ground Zero from the Community Center and you cannot see the Community Center from Ground Zero.

The righties intentionally conflate Al Qaeda with the entire Muslim religion.  If we follow that "logic", shouldn't we shut down churches near the Murrah Building bomb site in Oklahoma because Christian terrorist Timothy McVeigh blew up a building there? 

The Center's site is hardly "hallowed ground" - it is a vacant Burlington Coat Factory!  And speaking of hallowed ground, here are other things within a 3 block radius of Ground Zero:  tittie bars, a gay bar, nail salons and all manner of other urban storefronts.  Are you planning on destroying all of those in the name of hallowedness?  For God's sakes, they are currently building a shopping center in the basement of the Ground Zero construction site.  Is Cinnabon going to be judged "hallow" enough to put a store in the basement of the towers.  And who gets to doo the judging?  Oh, you know the answer to that -- only the right wing loves our country sufficiently to define and interpret its precious values.  The left is too busy plotting the overthrow of our government, ramming vaguely progressive legislation down the throats of an unsupportive electorate, and planning the demise of Our Country As We Know It.

Oh yeah, it turns out that there are already at least 2 mosques within a several block radius of Ground Zero.  Surely we need to close them down forthwith...or not.

The Bill of Rights protects our freedoms at all times - not just when it is popular and/or convenient to do so.  Indeed, those rights were enumerated specifically so that we can protect the minority from the tyranny of a rabid majority.

After 9-11, I remember a lot of people wanting the "good Muslims" to stand up and renounce the actions of the bad ones.  This cultural center represents the best of the Muslim world - an effort to reach out to the entire community to build bridges of understanding and hope.  They are doing what we wanted them to do, for gosh sakes!

By supporting the creation of this center, we make a statement to the rest of the world that we LIVE by the values we preach.  Tolerance and religious freedom are amongst the values that in theory distinguish us from so many other nations.  Are we really so ready to abandon these principles a at the first shrill tweet from Sarah Palin nd her ilk??

If we force the Center's developers to move elsewhere, aren't we confirming Al Qaeda's message to the Muslim world - that the US is waging war on their whole religion?