It's also become a kind of Rorschach test for how Americans view the place of Islam in U.S. society, and the nation's more-than-two-centuries-old traditions of religious freedom and tolerance.
But are people debating this so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" even armed with the basic facts? Here are some questions and answers:
Q. Why do they call it "the Ground Zero Mosque"?
A. They shouldn't. In fact, there is no such thing as "the Ground Zero Mosque" or - as some GOP pols have started calling it - "the 9/11 mosque." The proposed 13-story, $100 million Islamic center is two blocks - or about two football fields - away from the Ground Zero location attacked nine years ago.
Q. What is Cordoba House and why do they want to do this?
A. The group had been looking to expand. Considered a force for a moderate and peaceful version of Islam, Cordoba's leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has praised the lower Manhattan location because it "sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11."
Most local leaders - most notably New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - have supported the proposal from the git-go.
Q. So what happened?
A. A driving force has clearly been a right-wing blogger named Pam Geller, whose site is named "Atlas Shrugs" in honor of her libertarian hero, Ayn Rand. Geller, who has made outlandish claims that President Obama is a secret Muslim, began pounding the drums in May through her group SIOA - Stop Islamization of America. Geller's efforts won headlines in the conservative-leaning New York Post, riled up some 9/11 families and floated into a political outrage-o-sphere populated by the likes of 2012 GOP White House hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who then famously took to Twitter to ask "peaceful Muslims" to "pls refudiate" the idea.
