ABSTRACT

In 2009, controversy erupted over proposed plans for the building of Park 51, an Islamic cultural center to be located in lower Manhattan. Opponents immediately began to call the site the “Ground Zero Mosque,” though it was neither a mosque nor at the location of the former Twin Towers. The 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America argued:

Imam Rauf embraces Shariah, a sociopolitical system of jurisprudence based upon the Koran which supersedes man-made law and which rejects the Constitutional doctrine of the separation of church and state. Islamic countries that embrace Shariah and political Islam are known for brutal policies that discriminate against women, gays, and religious minorities. Shariah law is entirely incompatible with the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment and would violate 1st Amendment protections of speech, assembly and the free exercise of religion. We feel that the attempt to use our loved one' deaths and the painful legacy of 9/11 stil l felt by New Yorkers to engage in a campaign to reverse America's core doctrine of religious freedom—and to do so under the guise of interfaith understanding—is a gross insult to the memory of those who were killed on that terrible day. 1