Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America's heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see. Since that dark day, Americans have been asked to bear the burden of defending those values, again and again and again. Now this president declares that the victims of 9/11 and their families must bear another burden. We must stand silent at the last place in America where 9/11 is still remembered with reverence or risk being called religious bigots.

Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a "deeply traumatic event," it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit.

We are stunned by the president's willingness to disregard what Americans should be proud of: our enduring generosity to others on 9/11-a day when human decency triumphed over human depravity. On that day, when 3,000 of our fellow human beings were killed in barbaric act of raw religious intolerance unlike this country had ever seen, Americans did not turn outward with hatred or violence, we turned to each other, armed with nothing more than American flags and countless acts of kindness. In a breathtakingly inappropriate setting, the president has chosen to declare our memories of 9/11 obsolete and the sanctity of Ground Zero finished. No one who has lived this history and felt the sting of our country's loss that day can truly believe that putting our families through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace.

We will honor the memory of our loved ones. We will protect our children, whose lives will never be the same. We will not stand silent.

...There was a particularly nauseating moment when President Obama called Ground Zero "hallowed ground." Well, what does "hallowed" mean if it doesn't mean "ground that we treat with more deference and sensitivity than other places?" He clearly doesn't see the ground as "hallowed." He supports treating it like any other intersection in America.

Even worse is the tone of his speech (see video above). He's clearly angry and annoyed by those of us who oppose the mosque. He's not saying "Hey--this idea sucks, but the law's the law--what can I do?" President Obama said last night that the mosque BELONGS at Ground Zero, and that there's something wrong ("This is America!") with those of us who oppose it.

President Obama has gone beyond "laws and ordinances." He thinks the Cordoba imam is the good guy, and 68% of the American people are the bad guys...[Read more.]

...That's why Disney's 1993 proposal to build an American history theme park near Manassas Battlefield was defeated by a broad coalition that feared vulgarization of the Civil War (and that was wiser than me; at the time I obtusely saw little harm in the venture). It's why the commercial viewing tower built right on the border of Gettysburg was taken down by the Park Service. It's why, while no one objects to Japanese cultural centers, the idea of putting one up at Pearl Harbor would be offensive.

And why Pope John Paul II ordered the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He was in no way devaluing their heartfelt mission to pray for the souls of the dead. He was teaching them a lesson in respect: This is not your place; it belongs to others. However pure your voice, better to let silence reign...

...Religious institutions in this country are autonomous. Who is to say that the mosque won't one day hire an Anwar al-Aulaqi -- spiritual mentor to the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber, and onetime imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 terrorists?

An Aulaqi preaching in Virginia is a security problem. An Aulaqi preaching at Ground Zero is a sacrilege. Or would the mayor then step in -- violating the same First Amendment he grandiosely pretends to protect from mosque opponents -- and exercise a veto over the mosque's clergy?...

...Obama's statement begs the question posed by the mosque (or whatever it is) at Ground Zero. No one has questioned the right of Muslims to practice their religion the same as anyone else in this country. Rather, those opposed to the mosque have asked the proponents to recognize and give way to the feelings of ordinary Americans that a mosque does not belong at Ground Zero.

If it is another mosque that is wanted, as Obama suggests, ordinary Americans desire only that it be built somewhere else in New York. Obama's invocation of the First Amendment right of the free exercise of religion is not on point.

In the good old USA, citizens have a right to do many wrongs. One such wrong would be the establishment of a Muslim shrine at Ground Zero. Obama simply does not engage the point. He does not argue that the establishment of a Muslim shrine at Ground Zero would be right...[More.]

Imagine yourself on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.

As you sat there in shock, what if someone had told you that in 10 years, the World Trade Center would still be a crater. However, just off of Ground Zero, a gigantic, 13-story mosque would be erected. A mosque endorsed by President Barack Hussein Obama.

You would have thought we had lost a war, wouldn't you?

To those who are still confused: The men who wish to build this mosque had the choice to build it further from Ground Zero. They refused. If they were granted the choice to move it closer to Ground Zero, to build it on Ground Zero, do you still think they would refuse? If you think the answer is "no", you should have your head - and your heart - examined.

...For Obama, 9/11 was a "deeply traumatic event for our country." Traumatic events invite characteristic reactions and over-reactions--fearfulness, anger, even hysteria. That's how Obama understands the source of objections to the Ground Zero mosque. It's all emotional. The arguments don't have to be taken seriously. The criticisms of the mosque are the emotional reactions of a traumatized people.

But Americans aren't traumatized. 9/11 was an attack on America, to which Americans have responded firmly, maturely, and appropriately. Part of our sensible and healthy reaction is that there shouldn't be a 13-story mosque and Islamic community center next to Ground Zero (especially when it's on a faster track to be built than the long-delayed memorial there). But Obama (like Bloomberg) doesn't feel he even has to engage the arguments against the mosque--because he regards his fellow citizens as emotionally traumatized victims, not citizens who might have a reasonable point of view.