Religious freedom?

In politics, symbolism is often an easier sell than substance.

So no one should be surprised that a proposal to build a Muslim mosque and community center within blocks of the former site of the World Trade Center -- blown up by a gang of vicious Muslim murderers on Sept. 11, 2001 -- has become a political hot-button issue.

First, let's be clear: The organizer of this project is not some clueless cleric, taken completely by surprise by the furor. No, the project was initially named the "Ground Zero Mosque" not by opponents but by the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf himself, and his supposedly less offensive moniker, the "Cordoba Center," honors the location in Spain where the conquering Muslims built a huge mosque on the site of the demolished Christian Basilica of St. Vincent the Martyr, launching an era of persecution of the local Christians under Abd ar-Rahman II, which included the martyrdom of St. Eulogius.

Get it?

There are already scores of mosques standing peacefully in New York City and environs -- whether New Yorkers will permit Muslims to live and worship peacefully in their midst has never been at issue.

The goal here was an in-your-face declaration that militant Islam is still at war with America. Allow the construction, and its proponents figure it will stand as a monument to the fact they're winning, while their opponents are too weak-willed even to prevent their erecting a monument near the site of their murderous "victory." Turn it down, on the other hand, and the radicals will have further proof America's claims of tolerance and pluralism are all lies, at least when it comes to the Muhammadan faith.

That liberals take the side of the Muslim provocateurs is predictable enough. On this rare occasion, they do happen to be correct: The mosque proposal may be in poor taste, but once someone buys a piece of land and proposes to use it in a manner consistent with reasonable local planning and zoning standards, no government agency should stand in the way.

That said, it's wonderful to see these liberals re-discover the bedrock constitutional principle of property rights: Wal-Mart should quickly file applications to build stores in all their favorite upscale neighborhoods before they again change their minds.

And second, simply in the interest of confirming imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's sincerity on all this "demonstrating that we can live in peaceful tolerance side by side" business, the local Zoning Commission should -- as suggested by TV host Greg Gutfeld -- promptly approve a gay bar and exotic dance club next door to the mosque, and might also ask the imam to begin the process of applying for permission to build a Christian church in Mecca, updating us all regularly on how that's working out.