It's wrong to "refudiate" the First Amendment but is Palin wrong about the mosque at Ground Zero?

Reason.com's Steve Chapman suggests it is a wrong-headed position of Sarah Palin and others in trying to prevent a mosque, which has the overwhelming approval of the local community, from being built near Ground Zero in New York.

He suggests Palin's position is an offense to the First Amendment that gives Americans the right to free expression of religion.

Chapman points out, "associating all Muslims with al-Qaida is like equating all Christians with the Ku Klux Klan."

But Palin makes her own compelling argument when she writes:

Just days after 9/11, the spiritual leader of the organization that wants to build the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, suggested that blame be placed on the innocents when he stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Rauf refuses to recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of our ally, Israel, and refuses to provide information about the sources of funding for the $100 million mosque. Rauf also plays a key role in a group behind the flotilla designed to provoke Israel in its justifiable blockade of Gaza. These are just a few of the points Americans are realizing as New York considers the proposed mosque just a stone’s throw away from 9/11’s sacred ground.

It seems that while a mosque may not be wrong, a mosque led by the particular group that wants to build it may be.

Chapman's article, both print and audio, are available here.
 
Palin's facebook entry discussing the mosque can be viewed here.