Obama supports "Ground Zero Mosque" (of course he does)

The trick with zoning or historic places is that it is already arbitrary in many cases already.

Zoning may seem arbitary but unless its applicable it still fails the test.

The latter board could absolutely have said the structure was "historic" with ZERO indication that the real motive might be something else. "it has unique moldings and must be preserved."

Which wouldn't have shut down the mosque and wouldn't prevent the same people doing the redevelopment into a bigger mosque/communtiy center

So......

Done.

.......Not in the slightest.

I'm not saying that would not be an abuse of the 1st, it would be.

Well done for facing that
Thats the problem, throwing the constitution out the window to deal with some hysteria whipped up over a pile of false representations would be an insult to the nation and a gift wrapped prize to the fundy nuts.
Several people have written that allowing the development is amounting to a victory for OBL or whoever runs that small silly organisation nowadays but the reverse is true, stopping the building would be a victory for al-qaida.