Although there might be a place of worship contained within, the place largely will serve as a community center for the growing Muslim population in New York City. The entire protest over the building’s existence has become a fabricated issue to garner outrage among the community and gain political headway by any means necessary. The games just seem to be getting dirtier and dirtier.

The location of the community center actually is two blocks away from Ground Zero. Anyone who has visited Manhattan can testify the island is small — extremely small. Space is precious and two blocks is not on Ground Zero. In that case, I guess we might as well call the entire island of Manhattan hallowed ground. In a nation founded on the cornerstone of religious freedom, we must remember that this cannot be based on sheer convenience, or when the ruling class finds it favorable to allow. Even if one believes this is a “Christian Nation,” it should be a tolerant one.

I am in no way trying to discount the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. I believe what happened was terrible and those who carried out the events truly were monsters. However, they acted as a fringe movement from a religion with more than one billion members. I wonder how much outrage would exist if a church was built within two blocks of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The worst terrorist attack on American soil before Sept. 11 was committed by — gasp — a Christian! That fact seems rather convenient to omit and forget.

The construction of the community center has become a convenient point of outrage because it creates an “Us vs. Them” attitude with religious undertones. Suddenly, the enemies of the U.S. have become the Islamic community instead of extremists. Ironically, the very builders of the center stand as moderates — the very kind of people to which the U.S. must reach out.

Although it might be easy to dismiss the importance of the U.S. reaching out to these communities, if we do not then we are playing right into the hands of al-Qaida. By alienating potential allies, the U.S. is playing a very dangerous game — and al-Qaida would love to see us lose. In the shadow of our withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. cannot afford to make the entire religion an enemy of the state. We must to continue to demonstrate to the Islamic community that the U.S. is not an enemy to Muslims as al-Qaida would have them believe. We must show them we are as tolerant as we preach and that our tolerance is not merely extended to those who look like our founding fathers.

The political dialogue of the past year has been one of confusion, deception and political intrigue, from the “Death Panels” and “Obamacare” to the recent “Ground Zero Mosque” nonsense. We must remember we are committed to democracy and the Constitution. The political machinations of those with something to gain should not be used to confuse and muddle our opinions and sentiments.

I don’t stand as a guilty liberal with a chip on my shoulder; rather, I believe that all of the Constitution must be upheld. It must be upheld in all instances, not just when it is convenient to us.

The values we treasure must not be exclusive. If this proposed community center solely was a mosque and built right in the middle of Ground Zero than maybe the issue would be more questionable, but that is not the case. The facts behind the issue have become lost in the rhetoric; all of which has been turned into one unpalatable buzz phrase designed to make the American public cringe.

Truth might be the first casualty in war, but we must remember not to lose ourselves in the political battleground and become mere pawns for players in their political maneuvering.

Matt Manning is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at mannin84@msu.edu.