NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-life Catholic actress Patricia Heaton gave her support to families of September 11 victims who say they don’t want socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani to attend the upcoming 25th anniversary commemoration at Ground Zero over the mayor’s history of concerning remarks and associations regarding Islamist extremism.

As LifeSiteNews covered Tuesday, a petition to bar Mamdani from the event garnered more than 1,100 signatures in a week, 300 from victims’ families. As of Friday morning, July 31, the petition is nearing 60,000 signatures.

“This anniversary is one of remembrance grounded in shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence,” the petition reads. “For many families and community members, participation in these ceremonies carries an implicit expectation that those present uphold and affirm these principles without ambiguity.”

Heaton, best known for her starring role on the popular sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond who also serves as celebrity ambassador for the Christian humanitarian relief charity World Vision, endorsed the petition on July 27, telling New Yorkers to “keep it going.” She has criticized Mamdani for his extremism on multiple occasions in the past:

Mamdani has radicals working for him – wise up New York https://t.co/CQWtiZ3Gz2

— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) September 29, 2025

Mamdani allows this https://t.co/mAAghH5Opa

— Patricia Heaton (@PatriciaHeaton) January 10, 2026

The petition cites several reasons Mamdani’s record is perceived as “hostile to these shared values,” including his reluctance to condemn the rallying cry “globalize the intifada”; association with “individuals whose public statements or records are viewed by concerned family members as dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies”; Mamdani’s own father writing in the wake of 9/11 that suicide bombers should be “understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism”; Mamdani himself blaming the United States for radicalizing al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki; the mayor’s appointment of Ramzi Kassem, “who previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi (convicted in an al-Qaeda tanker bombing plot),” as the city’s chief counsel; his endorsement of “candidates such as Aber Kawas, who described 9/11 as an attack ‘a couple of people did in the context of U.S. capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia,’ and who also expressed sympathy for Ahmed Ferhani, who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a Manhattan synagogue”; and more.

As detailed by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Mamdani’s campaign received significant financial support from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and related groups and activists accused of ties with and sympathy for Islamist terrorists; has vowed to block virtually all cooperation with federal immigration enforcement; champions government-funded childcare for every New Yorker up to age five; wants government control of utility companies; supports raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour; and more.

During the mayoral race, a November 2023 photograph surfaced of Mamdani and Democrat Councilman Yusef Salaam smiling with Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, whom he called “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.” Federal prosecutor had named Wahhaj as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and while the imam denies that charge, he did publicly vouch for terrorist leader Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called “blind sheik,” as a “respected scholar.”

Such ties already had people challenging the idea of Mamdani leading the city so fatefully scarred by the September 11, 2001, terror attacks — an incongruity only reinforced when he gave remarks focusing on Muslim Americans victimized by the reaction to 9/11, in particular “the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in a hijab.” Internet sleuths quickly determined Mamdani’s aunt did not wear a hijab, prompting him to claim he had been referring to his father’s cousin rather than his literal aunt.

Mamdani has responded by dismissing the families’ concerns in a Monday press conference, declaring he will “proudly” attend the event.

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