On May 6, 2010, the New York City Community Board voted unanimously to approve the project. As Salon reporter Justin Elliott has documented, the Cordoba House project did not become controversial until May 2010.21 In response to the community board’s decision, Pamela Geller, a right-wing blogger, posted an entry titled “Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction.” In it, she wrote, “This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem.” The next day, her group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) launched “Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!” While this wasn’t the first time the organized Islamophobes had blogged about the community center, their moment had finally arrived in the aftermath of the “homegrown terrorism” hysteria, which created space for the hard right to fan the flames of racism.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 514