Christian and Muslim leaders came together to support the Murfreesboro Islamic community and imam Ossama Bahloul Sunday afternoon at The Village Church in East Nashville. “We just really wanted to reach out to him and to let him know that we cared about his community and him and that we would be praying with them,” said Dr. Andrew Anyabwile, Village Church pastor.
Category Archives: USA
The American Enterprise Institute’s Islamophobia problem
Islamic Center of Murfreesboro: judge says construction can proceed
Construction of a controversial mosque in Murfreesboro can continue. Earlier this week a judge said county commissioners did not give proper notice before approving the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. But a new court order out today says it does not mean work has to stop on the new mosque.
CAIR intervention secures removal of offensive sign
After the controversial sign he posted in front of Domenico’s Ristorante in Cranberry caused a stir in the community (including on the Cranberry Patch site), owner Michael Pollice has had a change of heart. “I like to push stuff as far as it can go,” he said. “I will never do that again, because it hurts people.”
Pollice, who is known in the community for his thought-provoking – and sometimes controversial – signs, erected a sign last week that said “Flying Remote Control Airplanes into Muslim People at the Mall is My Thing.”
Neo-Nazi arrested by FBI’s Terrorism Task Force after buying AK-47 from undercover agent
A Manassas man accused of being a white supremacist was arrested Wednesday by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after allegedly receiving a fully automatic AK-47 from an undercover agent.
Court records show Douglas Howard Story, 48, of the Manassas area, allegedly provided a semi-automatic AK-47, along with $120, to an undercover law enforcement agent with the intent that it be modified to become fully automatic. He then allegedly received the modified weapon from an undercover agent and was subsequently arrested, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and FBI Assistant Director for the Washington Field Office announced Story’s arrest Wednesday. He has been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act – a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
New York: Sikh and Muslim transport workers win right to religious head coverings
Muslim and Sikh transit workers will be allowed to wear religious head coverings while on the job under a settlement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced on Wednesday. The agreement ended a winding legal case propelled by the Sept. 11 attacks.
The authority faced a series of lawsuits, including one from the United States Justice Department, in the years that followed the attack; the suits claimed that the authority was selectively enforcing policies on head coverings worn by Muslim and Sikh employees and that it had transferred workers to nonpublic positions if they refused to remove the coverings or attach the authority’s logos to them.
Under the new policy, any religious headgear will be permitted as long as it is blue, the color of the authority’s logo, said Adam Lisberg, the authority’s chief spokesman.
Islam is a religion, and therefore protected by the Constitution
Shariah law is religious law, but because it is the law of a demonized religion associated with terrorism and anti-Americanism, Brandon can label it political, depriving it of First Amendment protections. I don’t assume this is a cynical ploy. Blinded by bigotry and their notions of “true” and “false” religions, Islamaphobes may be sincere in the counter-factual belief that Islam is purely political.
That belief is essential to the claim that Shariah law can’t be tolerated because it conflicts with the Constitution. Once you acknowledge that Islam is a religion and Shariah law is religious, its conflicts with secular law become arguments for, not against, religious liberty. Of course, Shariah law is inconsistent with the Constitution. So are the tenets of Catholicism, Judaism (especially orthodox Judaism), and most if not all other faiths….
Religious and secular laws often conflict; that’s precisely why we have a First Amendment. It provides a legal framework for ensuring that religion and government can “co-exist.” If religious law were categorically subordinate to the Constitution (as Joe Brandon imagines Shariah law should be), then the Catholic Church would be required to ordain women, Orthodox Jews would have to sit together in shul, and religious groups that oppose gay marriages would be required to perform them.
It’s not hard to imagine the uproar that would greet the slightest hint of official interest in violating such basic guarantees of religious liberty, especially if directed against majority or respectable, minority religious practices.
Wendy Kaminer demolishes the arguments of Joe Brandon, attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Murfreesboro Islamic Center
Bill protecting religious garb passes California Assembly
A bill that would protect the rights of workers who wear religious-oriented clothing at work was overwhelmingly passed by the California Assembly on Tuesday, May 28. AB 1964 now goes to the State Senate, where its proponents hope it will pass before the Legislature adjourns at the end of August. Then it would go to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.
The bill, dubbed the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012, essentially would not break new ground but would clarify the federal Fair Employment and Housing Act, said Rachel Linn, spokeswoman for Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, author of the measure.
Judge’s ruling halts construction of Murfreesboro Islamic Center
A judge in Tennessee ruled Tuesday that the public wasn’t properly notified about a meeting where local officials approved the plan for a proposed mosque, meaning construction of the disputed project will be stopped.
The new facility for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro was one of several Muslim projects in the U.S. that hit a swell of conservative opposition around the same time as the controversy over a plan to build a Muslim community center near New York’s ground zero.
Chancellor Robert Corlew noted that his ruling doesn’t stop the Rutherford County Planning Commission from reconsidering the issue and again approving the site plan in the booming city of about 100,000 people southeast of Nashville.
Saleh Sbenaty, a spokesman for leaders of the mosque, said the ruling was disappointing but his group remains committed to building the Islamic center. They have been worshipping for many years at a smaller site in the community.
‘Anti-mosque activity’ in more than half of US states
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which were carried out by hijackers from Arab countries, animosity toward Muslims sometimes has taken the form of opposition to construction of mosques and other Islamic facilities. National debate erupted over plans for a community center that became known as the “Ground Zero mosque” in Lower Manhattan.
In the last five years, there has been “anti-mosque activity” in more than half the states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Some mosques were vandalized – a $5,000 reward is being offered in a 2011 Wichita mosque arson case – and others were targets of efforts to deny zoning permits.
Mosque opponents often raise concerns about traffic and parking, but Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s freedom of religion program, says they can be “sham arguments” that mask anti-Muslim sentiment.