That’s because this is a story that has been playing out in Europe for some time, with results ranging from restrictions on religious liberty to a worsening of tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims. America cannot afford to go down the same path.

Everything in, above and around Ground Zero is personal for Tim Brown, a retired New York City firefighter who used to work at the World Trade Center and lost dozens of friends on Sept. 11, 2001.

Robert Dreyfuss, contributing editor to the Nation Magazine and also a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones has a great blog post about anti-Muslim bigot Robert Spencer of SIOA-fame training and explaining Islam to the FBI and Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Imagine a fairly widespread, fairly mainstream ethos in which politicians, pundits, and academics convened to denigrate practitioners of Christianity or Judaism. Imagine that these commentators picked apart the New or Old Testament to find its most heinous contents, then used those phrases to justify their hatred and distrust.

I refer to it as an Islamic building because the ongoing fight about whether it is a mosque or a cultural center is irrelevant. Typically, if you are in favor of the building’s construction, you refer to it as the latter and if opposed to it, as the former.

Gingrich’s affinity for religious freedom and his belief in God-given rights it would seem, doesn’t extend to Americans who are Muslim. Such outright bigotry and blatant hypocrisy from Gingrich, an avid historian and former college professor, is even more repulsive when you consider his reasoning.

We ought to welcome the growth of Islam in America for one reason: Muslims in America are fast becoming the model of intelligent and progressive Islam for the entire Muslim world.Muslim Americans have all the ingredients at hand to nurture the most reasoned and learned scholars, thinkers and leaders.

Since Muslim immigrants have generally enjoyed fair treatment on almost every level of U.S. society, there is no antagonistic relationship between Muslims and their adopted country, despite some disagreements over U.S. foreign policy.

For the most part, I’ve been pretty lucky when it comes to my neighbors. I’ve gotten along with the vast majority of them, and I’ve never had cross-yard feuds or open hostility toward the people who live near me.