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At a broiling hot event in a parking lot at a North Philly shopping complex, U.S. Senate hopeful Joe Sestak strongly supported the concept of religious freedom in connection with the ground zero-area mosque, although he deemed it a local issue that should be handled -- with sensitivity -- by New York.
Sestak and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also fended off an angry heckler who's backing Republican Pat Toomey but who showed up in the crowd and accused the Democratic nominee of speaking at an event hosted by a Muslim group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which he noted hasn't renounced Hamas or Hezbollah.
Yet Sestak has an interesting perspective as a former military man who worked at the Pentagon, which was attacked by the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Bloomberg very much framed the event, taking the mike to answer when a Philly reporter asked Sestak about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's disavowal of the project.
"Let me point out as somebody from New York, there is a mosque that close already and it's been there for a long time," Bloomberg said, referring to a different project.
Sestak chimed in, "As you know, I haven't taken very good direction yet from party leadership. All that said, I strongly believe in the constitutional right of religious freedom and in the separation of church and state applying equally to everyone. Those are rights that I defended for 31 years in that fine U.S. Navy. This is an issue for New York to resolve as long as it respects those constitutional rights. ... Let's also step back and say, 'Let's stop playing politics with religion.' "
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