A Mormon with a memory: Sen. Hatch greenlights "Ground Zero Mosque"

In an interview on Monday with Fox13now in Salt Lake City, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said he would be “the first to stand up” for the rights of Muslims to build an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero. Well, he’s not exactly the first, but I’ll take it.

A few days ago I lamented the fact that so many prominent Mormons, including Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, had come out against the mosque.

As almost every Mormon knows, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been on the receiving end of more than their fair share of religious discrimination, including discrimination of the “don’t build it here” kind.

The Mormon founder Joseph Smith Jr. was killed by an anti-Mormon mob in 1844, and one reason LDS Church members made their westward trek to Utah was because they were hounded out of New York, Illinois, and Missouri by people who thought "Mormon American" was an oxymoron.