Gingrich to miss anti-mosque rally

"Newt is not speaking at the rally on 9/11," said Joe DeSantis of Newt.org.   "We never had him scheduled to do so. The reason there is confusion is that a member of our staff promised the organizers a video from Newt.  However, that was a mistake and he should not have done so. "

The other people listed on the FDI website as confirmed speakers are former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Dutch anti-Islamist Geert Wilders, New York Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Gary Bernsten, Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives Michael Grimm, Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice and conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.

The last legal obstacle to the mosque being built on Park Place was removed last month when the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission denied landmark status to the building now occupying the site for the proposed mosque.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who is leading the mosque project, has said his hope is that the "moderate Muslim voice, which has always condemned terrorism, can work for a new, peaceful, and harmonious relationship with all New Yorkers."

The more moderate of the mosque's opponents say, however, that the imam and his followers are being insensitive to the families of the people who died on 9/11, since all of the terrorists involved in the attacks were Muslims, albeit of an extremist sect.

Many of the mosque's opponents, including some of the scheduled speakers, are far from moderate in their opinions of Islam.

Wilders, a Dutch politician, is openly anti-Islamic, having said "I hate Islam," and having compared the Koran to Mein Kampf.

Wilders has said that Islam is not a religion but an ideology, "the ideology of a retarded culture," he said.

Gingrich himself has made controversial remarks about the proposed mosque.