BTW, as I said in the other thread on this subject, I cannot see how to ban it without going against the 1st Amendment.
Instead, I maintain that strict separation should apply.
In this latest case, the simple question is this:
did the mosque, or would ANY OTHER religious building get precedence over landmark status vs other possible uses? This unelected group decides what building of XXX age happen to be architecturally important enough to be preserved—others of the same age, based on their subjective view, DO merit protection.
This is a case where what is being built, even who owns a structure should be 100% unknown to the committee for any sort of fairness. It's hard to believe that they'd reach the same conclusion—given the fact they they get to arbitrarily decide what people can do with their own property—if the structure to be built was something they were single-mindedly against.
I'm against this mosque, but I don't think there is any "american" reason to not permit it—landmark status committees are wrong, period, IMHO, everywhere (an objective standard a computer could render (like any building over a certain age, made of a certain material, or nothing at all). Better would be strict separation to make sure that they get ZERO special treatment down the road. No breaks in property taxes, no special zoning rules, NOTHING.
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