"A Mosque Maligned"

Last week, President Obama took a brave stand in support of a core American principle: freedom of religion.

Now, President Obama is under serious attack from Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and much of the Republican Party, who are using the proposed Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan to whip up fear and hate. We all need to speak out and stand with the President in defense of basic American values. In the following video Shaik Ali and Mob Abid speak in an interview with journalist Lia Petrides Maiello as the site of the proposed Islamic community center in lower Manhattan.

Most laughably, we have seen politicians like Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for New York governor, question whether Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the principal figure behind the project, might have links to “radical organizations.” We have seen Newt Gingrich depict the organization behind the center — the Cordoba Initiative, which is dedicated to “improving Muslim-West relations” and interfaith dialogue — as a “deliberately insulting” and triumphalist force attempting to built a monument to Muslim victory near the site of the twin towers.

Video by Rafael Martínez Alequín for YFP.