Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stated his support for the proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero, according to several reports.
The 90-year-old Stevens said Americans should understand the importance of religious freedom and that "American Muslims should enjoy the freedom to build their places of worship wherever permitted by local zoning laws," the Associated Press reported.
Stevens, who retired from the Supreme Court in June, made the comments in a speech he gave to the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation in Washington D.C. on Thursday.
Stevens compared the controversy surrounding the planned mosque to negative feelings he had when he saw a group of Japanese tourists at Pearl Harbor — before he remembered he shouldn't judge one group based on what others had done, he explained in his speech, according to the AP.
"We should never pass judgment on barrels and barrels of apples just because one of them may be rotten," he said, the wire service reported.
The mosque's proposed location, two blocks away from the World Trade Center site, has upset some family members of Sept. 11 victims who have asked that it be moved.
Others, Justice Stevens among them, have urged New Yorkers to be open and not to discriminate against groups for religious reasons.
"The Muslims planning to build the mosque are not responsible for what an entirely different group of Muslims did on 9/11," he said, according to ABC News.
