Fear, but also ignorance compounded by the media's addiction to shorthand -- e.g., referring to it as "the ground zero mosque" when it is neither at ground zero nor a mosque.

John, it's true you haven't called those with reservations about the ground zero mosque "stupid," but you did recently link to a blog post from someone who did. And in your own column just now, you did say that many who object to the construction of a mosque are "demagogues." Meanwhile, other liberal pundits with less self-restraint are accusing anyone who is unhappy with the mosque plans of being not just stupid, but racist, Islamophobic, etc. How ludicrous. Who are the real demagogues here?

This issue is not about fear. It's about sensitivity, and taste, and good form. Building a mosque two blocks from ground zero shows a lot of, well, chutzpah.

And by the way, comparing opposition to the mosque to the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans is way over the top.

Is no one "distressed" at the motives of any Muslim who wants to build a mosque there? There is an Orthodox Church - small but vital to the parishoners - that was destroyed by the Islamic terrorists on September 11: I guess they saw it as a bonus. Anyway, this church has been trying to get permission from the City to rebuild for these many years and it has not been forthcoming. And yet, the Mosqucovites have the permission and the permits they requested in a few months time. It really is too too hypocritical how so many people fawn over the Muslims to the exclusion of nearly everyone else.

From what I have read, the proponents of this Islamic center are well-meaning and innocuous. And I'm fairly sure that if they had any links to terrorists or were a danger to the Republic, that would have been dealt with by our vigilant authorities long since.

The point is that IT DOESN'T MATTER whether they have sensitivity or taste. They do not have to appear reasonable or agreeable to you or to me. They do not have to be nice people. (Remember the Rev. Fred Phelps?) Beyond conforming to municipal zoning codes, as they appear to have done, they do not owe you or me or anyone else an explanation.

The question I have been posing is very simple: Do you believe that the First Amendment to the Constitution grants free expression of religion? If anyone says yes, and tries to deny these people the exercise of that right, then demagogy is one of the lesser accusations that can be leveled.

This is not a liberal vs. conservative issue. This is an issue of whether the Bill of Rights means what it says or is a dead letter.

Interesting how reasonable it is to assume that the Bill of Rights means what it says... woops, except for that pesky second one.

I worry as much about people who don't understand the second one enforces the first.

Quite apart from the First Amendment issue is the issue of local autonomy. It is the City of New York's decision what gets built where in New York, and no one else's.

As I bluntly put it the other day: "Ground zero is a hole with a fence around it, like any other Manhattan construction project, and 2001 was a long time ago. Get over it."

A web log is one thing, but I think Mr. McIntyre should have his own column.

His missives fun to read, often thought provoking, and well, kind of inspiring in a intellectual kind of way.

Agreed, fear of the unknown is a large part of the matter. But so is stupidity -- of which it takes a certain amount to accept the mendacious arguments of Palin, Gingrich et al at face value. And for quite a bit of the opposition I'm seeing, it's a chance to let the inner racist out to play.

When we're presented with a group of people who appear to have a public record of promoting interfaith comity on the one hand, and the sort of a**holes who run around going "hurr hurr I smell BACON!" on the other hand, it doesn't seem all that hard to figure out who's acting in good faith.

It is extraordinarily offensive to equate Islam with terrorism (not to mention being factually inaccurate), and opposing this mosque does exactly that. The only way this can be construed as "insensitive" or "offensive" is if you believe that Islam somehow bears responsiblity for the 9/11 attack, as though every religion was to blame for the acts of its most extremist adherents, despite the fact that this bunch broke every Islamic rule of just war.

Timothy McVeigh, raised Catholic, maintained some adherence to Catholicism: shall we thus villify Catholicism for its part in the Oklahoma City bombing?

I just reviewed the banner and would like apologize as it seems like the web-log is already a full-fledge column. I wasn't trying to be funny in my previous comment, but rather sincere.

No offense taken. A number of readers have not known quite what to make of the [cough] eclectic contents of this blog.

For the record: Theodore Olson, who was solicitor general in George W. Bush's administration, and whose wife died in one of the planes in the September 11 attacks, may be assumed to be entitled to hold an opinion. This is his:

"Well, it may not make me popular with some people, but I think probably the president was right about this. I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices, or structures, or places of religious worship or study, where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing, and that we don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don't think it should be a political issue. It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue, either. I believe Governor Christie from New Jersey said it well -- that this should not be in that political, partisan marketplace."

Thank you so very much for the condescending "Not stupid, just afraid." Does no one edit you?

Sam raised a question about a column for Mr. McIntyre, which leads me to another question: If Mr. McIntyre had a column, would he be subjected to a copy editor's scrutiny?

Certainly if I had a column in the print edition, it would be edited by a copy editor.

Though I lack a copy editor for these posts, I do have a vast readership eager to point out my every typo and lapse.