The Florida televangelist Bill Keller, who has spearheaded a plan to build a “Christian center” as a counterpoint to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” has managed to anger both sides of the Park51 debate. As Nate Freeman of The New York Observer‘s PolitickerNY blog writes, Keller has “done the impossible”:
He’s managed to somehow inspire rage from both the pro-mosque camp and the anti-mosque camp. The pastor has announced plans to build a 9/11 Christian Center as a foil to the Park51 center, with his first sermon to be delivered this Sunday.
The Daily News reports that even those fighting for the mosque’s relocation think he’ll do more harm than good. “This guy is going to justify all the people who call us bigots and racists for opposing the mosque,” said Andy Sullivan, who is not the popular Atlantic writer with a blog called The Daily Dish. Instead, Andy Sullivan is a construction worker who started a “Hard Hat Pledge” to get the mosque moved and blogged about it.
For more information on Keller, read Salon‘s post on him here.