Part of me certainly understands the hurts of wanting to construct this and there is a bigger half that says (in my mind) we have freedom of religion here and that is simply that..freedom.
I'm equally offended by the idea of building commercial real estate on the actual site and wonder why it is OK to profit from the land right on the actual site and not build a building that houses prayer two blocks away. Perhaps it is because I don't really want to be drawn into this because ultimately I'll side with the freedom of religion argument and that those who are opposing it have collected an odd sort of hangers on out to score points at the sacrifice of truth and our constitution.
Newt is on this full throttle as is Giuliani who has no political axe to grind other than to be a VP running mate some day. Their opposition seems to center locally on Mayor Bloomberg who thinks that this speaks well of the country. The local radio talk shows are on fire about this and are just full up with "secret meeting places for terrorists" - yada yada.
I can't go to that side of the argument for the life of me. I find it repulsive and just scare mongering. Unfortunately it has it's audience and that is tragic because it validates this kind of thinking. It makes the wrong answer a justified answer. .. I won't answer question 20 on my natural science test because evolution is unsettled science .. type of thing.... and then don't expect it to be counted either wrong or off my total score.
Anyway, you can't see "ground zero" from here on a bet.