Obama's double standards

DAWN.COM Front Page Obama forced to retract support for NY mosque

President Obama's decision to retreat from his previous stance supporting the building of a mosque near Ground Zero is disappointing for many Muslims worldwide, who had placed immense faith in Obama to bridge the increasing divide between what is now viewed as 'Islam and the West.'

President Obama's succumbing to Republican pressure to withdraw his support for the project puts a question mark on his ability to take independent decisions regarding efforts to portray the Muslim community in a positive light, as opposed to their now widely held image as religious extremists and fanatics.Furthermore, Mr Obama's justification for his action being his belief that his government should ''treat everybody equally'' irrespective of their religion seems to contradict the very principle of democracy,which  his nation proudly declares to be built upon. If his statement is taken into account, then isn't not building the mosque a way of treating the Muslim community as unequal in relation to other religious communities in the U.S? One must ask, would Mr Obama have retreated his position if there had been a temple,synagogue or church instead of a mosque being built near Ground Zero? By retracting his support for the mosque project, Mr Obama has unknowingly  fallen prey to the populist opinion regarding the Muslim community as a 'danger' to freedom and to liberalism,simply because of their common religious practices such as communal prayers.
It is quite sad that Mr Obama's decision is a result of his party's fear that his earlier support for the mosque would have been brought up as a campaign issue during the mid-term elections in November.It indicates that votes have higher importance to the Democrats than the growing issue of the rights of a community (which should technically have the same rights as any other other religious community in the U.S, based on the principles of democracy).