current events practice

What's being discussed in this article?
            The article is discussing the debate over an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, Park51.  Many people believe that this is too close to ground zero and that it is the Muslims fault so we should not let them anywhere near ground zero but other people say, our Constitution says they can build a mosque because of freedom of religion and speech so they should be allowed to build a mosque.  It is a heated debate because many people are very sensitive about the issue of 9/11 because it was a horrible event but extremists were responsible no the entire Islamic faith so we shouldn't punish those who have the same religion but different political views of the 9/11 hijackers.
 
When did the event happen? (Is this breaking news or something that's been analyzed and discussed for a while?)
          This is a fairly recent event.  The debate has been going on for a while because it is such a sensitive subject and people do not want to seem cold and uncaring for what happened on 9/11 or cold and mean to Muslims because the United States was not built on those principles.  Right now there is a debate over it, so the debate is being analyzed and discussed and has been for a few weeks but no one knows when a decision will be made on allowing or not allowing the mosque to be built.

What questions do you have that would help make this article make more sense to you? What more do you need to learn about to be able to report on this event?
         I would really like to know when the idea of the community center or mosque was first proposed and what the original reaction was.  It seems weird to me that the very freedoms we pride ourselves on are the ones we want to take away from some of our citizens simply because they share the same God as the extremists who attacked us on 9/11.  I really want to know what the basis of their argument is.