The debate over plans to build a mosque near the site of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York is growing from New York City to Washington D.C., from California to Georgia, and the issue is increasingly being exploited by politicians in the run-up to November's mid-term elections.

U.S. President Barack Obama gave his opinions in the planned mosque when he made a comment at a White House dinner last Friday about America's commitment to religious freedom. The president said "That includes the right to build a place of worship."

But on Saturday the president told reporters they should not read too much into his words. The president said "I was not commenting and will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to build a mosque there."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has voiced his support for the project, agrees with the president. The mayor reminded Americans of a letter written by former President George Washington in support of a Jewish community on Rhode Island, in the same state. A time when Jews were not wholly welcomed by the Christian majority.

Mayor Bloomberg said Muslims are as welcome to worship in Lower Manhattan as anyone else. "And if we shout down a mosque and community center because it is two blocks away from the site where freedom was attacked, I think it would be a sad day for America," he said.

In the meantime, Republicans, neocons and assorted racists are fueling a surge in anti-Muslim protests across the U.S.. Opposition to a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, intensified after Republican candidates for Congress and state governor made opposition part of their campaigns.

It seems that the Ground Zero mosque has been up to now seen as a local issue has gone global and provided an opportunity for people to go public with their objections to Muslims.

In New York, a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative is placing adverts on New York buses showing a plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers and what it calls a "Mega Mosque" and asking "Why There?"

Only a month away from the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, a CNN opinion poll has indicated that 68 percent of Americans are opposed to the proposed Islamic cultural center.

"I think it a disgrace. They didn't even take account of the lost lives, the families that live in this painful period. I guarantee there are not a lot of people who want to work on this thing," Andy Sullivan told Xinhua, a first responder after the Sept. 11th terrorist attack.

Religious leaders and civil rights activists warn that a tide of Islamophobia that has swept the country since the destruction of the twin towers is being heightened by political exploitation of the New York dispute before nationwide elections and is increasingly bound up with hostility to immigrants and other forms of racism.

Eead Ramadan, president of the Council of Islamic New Yorkers, said the Islamic cultural center is for plural uses and it is not only a mosque. "Those people involved in the terrorist attack don' t represent Islams, and they also don't represent American Muslims like myself, because we are all victims as Americans," he told Xinhua.

Andy Ostroy, a New York City-based political analyst, thinks that while some claim that the building of a mosque so close to Ground Zero dishonors those who died that day, he would like to suggest the opposite; the mosque actually honors the dead by symbolizing the upholding of the laws and freedoms that make America great.

Frank Tatum lost his mother during the September 11th terrorist attacks, but he supports the Ground Zero mosque.

"I think it's important not to give into the hysteria. We do have religious freedom. I know the wounds are still very open, me myself included, but you have to look at the big picture. You can' t practice these freedoms only when it suits us. You have to practice them all along," he said.

A Time magazine article wrote that nine years after September 11th attacks, the fight over the Ground Zero mosque shows how much Americans remain obsessed with an enemy that may no longer exist.

"Allowing a place of worship to be built in lower Manhattan will constitute neither an American triumph nor a defeat. It will simply tell the world that this nation, wisely, has decided to move on," wrote the article.