Mayor Bloomberg, in perhaps the most courageous move of his mayoralty, got it precisely right when he stood up for religious freedom to support the creation of a mosque and community center in lower Manhattan.

It’s unfortunate that we have to remind ourselves of freedoms so elemental to our Constitution and national DNA, not to mention to the gloriously diverse and tolerant city we all call home.
How can it be that we would consider depriving members of any religion the right to worship wherever they please as long as they adhere to the law?

“We would betray our values — and play into our enemies’ hands,” Bloomberg said with the Statue of Liberty as his backdrop,  “if we were to treat Muslims different than anyone else.”

This debate has been fueled by the demagoguery of national politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who regularly demonize New York. It would be a grave mistake to bow to them.

By all reputable accounts, Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the Park 51 mosque, is a bridge-builder who has involved Jews and Christians in the project and has even been sent abroad by the State Department as an American emissary of moderate Islam.

Abdul Rauf’s project is an extension of those efforts, looking to create a community center akin to the  92nd Street Y, a Jewish hub of intellectual and cultural activities on the upper east side open to all comers.

Polls have generally sided with those who think the project should be built somewhere else. But the Bill of Rights exists to protect our eternally fragile democracy from the heated political winds of the moment.

We should all be thankful to Mayor Bloomberg for reminding us of that.

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