Obama Expands on Ground Zero Mosque Support

On Saturday, with criticism continuing to grow over Park51—the Islamic community center and mosque to be built near ground zero—President Obama expanded on the comments he made supporting the project’s construction at a White House Ramadan dinner the night before. “In this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Obama said, adding that he was merely defending, not endorsing, the project’s right to go ahead as planned. “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That's what our country is about. And I think it's very important as difficult as some of these issues are that we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”