Sestak, responding to questions, agreed.
"I strongly believe in the constitutional right of religious freedom and in the separation of church and state applying equally to everyone," said Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral serving his second term in the U.S. House. But, he added, "this is an issue for New York to resolve as long as it respects those constitutional rights. Let's stop playing politics with religion." The crowd of about 75 supporters applauded.
Sestak's Republican opponent, former Rep. Pat Toomey, says the Muslim group seeking to build the mosque and center should go elsewhere with the project out of sensitivity to the families of those killed at the trade center in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Robert Sklaroff, a physician and Republican activist from Elkins Park, questioned Sestak's judgment for speaking in 2007 to a Council on American-Islamic Relations dinner and said that the imam behind the mosque proposal had made anti-American statements on CBS's 60 Minutes.
"Look," Bloomberg said, "I would suggest you go from here directly to the library, get a copy of the Bill of Rights, and you'll realize that everybody has a right to say what they want to say. I happen to believe that that is the most important right that we have - the right to say what we want to say, which includes pray to whomever we want, in any place we want, in any manner we want."
Wendell Whitlock, chairman of the holding company for Sullivan Progress Plaza, denounced reporters for their mosque questions, calling the issue "contrived political crap" unrelated to the economy or other matters that affect people's lives.
