A lot of things bother me about this whole "mosque" business in New York, not the least of which is that a large part of it is being driven by those who think "Muslim" is an evil cult, not a religion or that all Muslims are responsible for the 9/11 attacks or even that the proposed project is a mosque (it really isn't) built immediately adjacent to the "hallowed" grounds of the World Trade Center (it, of course, is not). It's one thing if that mindset and distortion of reality is directing traffic in the debate. It would be quite another if grown men and women were discussing it.
There are polls out where an amazing (and sad) number of Americans say no to questions like, "Do you think that Muslims have a constitutional right to build the proposed mosque?" Again, it really isn't a mosque so the question is distorting the true issue somewhat. But what's really distorting matters is that no one seems to be asking those same people what to me would be the really pertinent question: "Do you think that Jews [or Catholics or Presbyterians, etc.] have the right to build a place of worship anywhere they can secure a site?" If someone answers "no" to all of those, that person isn't necessarily a religious bigot or a shredder of the First Amendment. He or she could just be a strong supporter of zoning laws.
Me, I think religious freedom means that my government doesn't single out any religion; that it treats them all equally. The protests against the Park 51 project strike me, first of all, as one of those things people are screaming about because they think they can grab some moral high ground and put their political foes on the defensive. For these folks, it's not about the building. It's about who's running this country and they think this is an opportunity to show it's them. But at its core, this is the crusade of those who want their government to operate on the premise that Islam is not to be treated like a "real" religion. It's not unlike those people (many of them the same people) who want their government to operate on the premise that a relationship between two people of the same sex cannot possibly be a "real" relationship.