The Rutherford County Commission voted 15-6 Thursday night to appeal a court ruling that voided approval of a mosque. “I just can’t imagine an appellate court would agree we should discriminate,” Commissioner Trey Gooch said before the vote.
Category Archives: USA
Georgia: DOJ sides with mosque in expansion fight
In court filings this week, United States Department of Justice attorneys conclude the city of Alpharetta may have discriminated against a mosque by denying its plans to expand.
IDF radio host: ‘Islam is most terrible disease in the world’
Loonwatch draws our attention to a comment made by one Avri Gilad on a talk show he hosts on the Israel Defense Forces station Army Radio, during a discussion about the current violent racist backlash against black African migrants in Israel. Gilad stated:
… let us not forget that those knocking on our doors belong to Islam, and Islam today is the most terrible disease raging around the world. It poisons its believers and poisons every place it reaches. The people that come here, especially the South Sudanese, are very moderate people, the real beautiful face of Islam … the problem is that when you carry the virus, you don’t know when it will explode inside you … every Muslim who enters here might become the flag carrier of the global Islam … and therefore we must take care of our lives.
Islamophobia: Anatomy of an American Panic
The Nation has a special issue entitled “Islamophobia: Anatomy of an American Panic” with articles examining different aspects of Islamophobia in the US.
These include Moustafa Bayoumi, “Fear and Loathing of Islam“, Jack Shaheen, “How the Media Created the Muslim Monster Myth” (subscription only), Petra Bartosiewicz, “Deploying Informants, the FBI Stings Muslims“, Laila Lalami, “Islamophobia and Its Discontents“, Abed Awad, “The True Story of Sharia in American Courts“, Ramzi Kassem, “The Long Roots of the NYPD Spying Program“, Max Blumenthal, “The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate“, and Laila Al-Arian, “When Your Father Is Accused of Terrorism“.
Islamophobes call on Tennessee governor to fire Muslim economic development officer
Tea party and anti-Muslim activists are taking aim at a recent hire by the administration of Gov. Bill Haslam, targeting one of its top economic development officers based on her religion and past work experience.
The Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C., organization that has frequently attacked Muslims for perceived ties to Islamist groups, and the 8th District Tea Party Coalition, an umbrella organization of West Tennessee tea party groups, have urged their members to pressure Haslam and Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty to dump Samar Ali, an attorney appointed last month as the department’s new international director.
The groups depict Ali as an Islamic fundamentalist with close ties to President Barack Obama. The claims are spurious and ECD has no intention of firing Ali, said Clint Brewer, a department spokesman. “She’s eminently qualified to do the job,” Brewer said. “We are lucky to be able to have her.”
Judge blocks occupancy certificate for Murfreesboro Islamic Center
A Murfreesboro judge has blocked local officials from issuing an occupancy certificate for a new mosque.
The move comes about two weeks after Rutherford County Chancellor Robert Corlew ruled that construction approval for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro was void. Corlew agreed with mosque opponents that there was not sufficient public notice of the meeting where construction had been approved two years earlier.
Despite that ruling, county officials have not taken steps to stop mosque construction.
At a Wednesday hearing, plaintiffs asked Corlew to order the county to act. “What is Tennessee Open Meetings law about, and what are the consequences, if you can say ‘Yes, you violated the open meetings law but there are no consequences?'” attorney Joe Brandon Jr. asked.
Corlew declined to halt construction, saying his ruling was not enforceable until after a 30-day appeal period. The Planning Commission voted Monday to appeal. The County Commission will take up the issue Thursday.
However, Corlew did grant an injunction preventing county officials from taking new actions to forward mosque construction. He later clarified that the specific action the county could not take was granting an occupancy certificate.
Construction is nearly complete for the first phase of the Islamic Center, which consists of a 12,000-square-foot multipurpose area that will be used for worship as well as special events. Mosque members hope to have the building ready in time for Ramadan, which begins at the end of July.
Corlew’s injunction could prevent mosque members from celebrating the Muslim holy month in their new space, although either the county or the mosque could to take actions to try to alter or delay the ruling.
Minnesota: city council rejects Islamic center plan
St. Anthony City Council members on Tuesday rejected plans to locate an Islamic center in the basement of the former Medtronic headquarters off Old Hwy. 8.
The proposed Abu-Huraira Islamic Center had been on hold for months after some residents objected to the center and city leaders studied whether city zoning would support the facility.
About 150 people attended Tuesday’s council meeting, where Muslim proponents asked the council to approve the nearly 15,000-square-foot center, which would be used for worship and assembly by the congregation of about 200.
“I’m a proud American. This is home. The center will serve the needs of our community,” Sadik Warfa said. “I know this issue is very emotional for some people. We are a melting pot. We are all Americans.”
Close to a dozen St. Anthony residents asked the council to deny the proposal, which they argued would reduce tax revenues, an argument Mayor Jerry Faust denied. Others contended the center would attract increased traffic in the neighborhood and create problems for those living nearby.
Some who spoke against the center made disparaging comments about the Muslim faith, although Faust tried to discourage such remarks. “Islam is evil. There’s no other religion in the world that endorses violence,” said John Murlowski, before Faust cut him off.
Worldwide counter-jihad alliance to launch with Stockholm demonstration on August 4
This is the typically bombastic headline to a press release from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) announcing a forthcoming protest in Sweden.
The Stockholm demonstration was originally an initiative by British Freedom, the political ally of the English Defence League. At a recent BF/EDL strategy meeting it was reported that “party leaders are planning to go to Stockholm to deliver a public apology on behalf of Luton for the fact that the Stockholm bomber was radicalised in the town”.
Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, who died in a failed suicide attack in the Swedish capital in December 2010, did indeed live in Luton for a number of years, but there is no evidence that the town or its Muslim community had any influence on his turn to violent extremism. In 2007, when Abdaly tried to use the Luton Islamic Centre as a platform to win support for his (at that stage still non-violent) extremist views, he was challenged by the centre’s leadership and forced to leave.
Commission votes to appeal ruling on Murfreesboro mosque
Rutherford County Planning Commissioners voted Monday night to fight a judge’s recent ruling saying they didn’t give residents enough warning about the building request for the Islamic Center in Murfreesboro.
Construction on the building on Veals Road and Bradyville Pike is still ongoing, but opponents have filed a stop work order. A judge is expected to rule on that issue Wednesday.
Rutherford County Chancellor Robert Corlew ruled May 29 that county officials violated the state’s Sunshine Law by not providing adequate notice of the meeting where the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro was approved. The order prohibits further meetings on the mosque without proper notice.
Shariah charade
In the 19th century, Catholicism was regarded by many people in this country as thoroughly incompatible with Americanism. They saw it as a hostile foreign element that would subvert democracy. Today, a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court are Catholic, and they are taken to be as American as Mountain Dew.
We’ve come a long way in religious tolerance. Or maybe not. The belief that Catholics are irredeemably alien and disloyal has given way to the fear that Muslims pose a mortal threat to our way of life.
Steve Chapman on the bogus threat of Islamic law in the US.