The proposed Islamic center has become a flash point of controversy. The idea for Cordoba House has been planned for a number of years. It is to be built on the site of a former coat factory store on Park Place, about two blocks from Ground Zero.

The Islamic center is supported by most politicians in Manhattan and by religious leaders of many faiths. It has the support of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, now the state’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate. The Republican contender for governor, Rick Lazio, has called upon Cuomo to investigate the center’s funding in his capacity as attorney general. Some Sept. 11 families, conservative politicians, right-wing bloggers and Tea Party activists oppose the idea.

Protests have flared against what some in the opposition — led predominantly by right-wing conservatives, including some families of 9/11 victims and activists of the so-called Tea Party movements — call the “Ground Zero Mosque” project, falsely implying the Islamic center would be built on the footprint of the World Trade Center towers. 

“Through misinformation and shameless fear-mongering,” the online American publication Salon recently noted, the opposition to the project has 46 percent support on the island of Manhattan, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

The plan for Cordoba House has been the dream of Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan. Khan said it would have facilities for athletics, arts, performances, lectures series, forums and weddings, as well as a prayer space - making more of an inter-faith community center than a mosque.

Abdul Rauf, an imam based in New York, told reporters that the principal aim of the center is to prevent radicalization and the recurrence of events like 9/11. He added that The Cordoba House would include a public memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the terrorist attack.

“My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists,” Abdul Rauf wrote in a New York Daily News op-ed. “We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society.”

“Our religion has been hijacked by the extremists,” said Daisy Khan. “This center will create this kind of counter momentum which will amplify the voices of the moderate Muslims. If we have to defeat the extremists, Muslims have to be leading that effort.”

The center is a collaboration between the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement. It was conceived in the wake of 9/11 to promote “integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture” based on the Islamic values of “compassion, generosity and respect for all.” Some critics say they believe the project is an attempt to impose political Islam in New York.

Others remain opposed to the project by citing the destruction of a landmark century-old building at the proposed site. New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing to debate the issue, but the final decision won’t be announced until sometime in August.

Ready to take on the spotlight, televangelist Bill Keller announced this week he will build a $1 million “9/11 Christian Center at Ground Zero.”

“If they can put a mosque near Ground Zero, we should be able to put a Christian center near ground zero and give people a choice,” Keller told reporters. He also told the website that the proposed mosque was “a spit in the face of the people of New York.”

A former computer salesman convicted of insider trading who became a born-again Christian, Keller is known for mixing Muslim stereotypes and slurs into his evangelical messages. He is also a “birther” who produced an infomercial last year “soliciting donations to pressure President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate,” writes Carl Franzen, a web journalist. “Now his organization has put up a separate website for the 9/11 Christian Center, which is collecting donations from those who wish to stand against evil. Like Keller’s other website, it includes links to virulent anti-Muslim screeds.”

Major US TV networks also recently rejected an anti-mosque TV ad.

Greg Sargent in the Washington Post questioned the validity of those backing the anti-mosque advertisement as well as those covering the issue.

“By now you may have heard that a shadowy right-wing group is getting lots of attention because two major networks have refused to run its despicable, bigoted ad attacking plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero,” Sargent write. “But what if the whole thing is a big stunt, and the ad was never intended to run, but just to get press attention?”