Attorney Joe Brandon
Some people in Murfreesboro are trying hard to maintain a sense of Mayberry. They don’t want a new Mosque butchering their perspective that Murfreesboro is a just a small Christian town with large aspirations. But Andy Griffith doesn’t live in Murfreesboro and attorney Joe Brandon and his group of plaintiffs might be the closest thing we’ve got to Barney Fife. The actions that these people have taken to stop the building the Islamic Center are absurd and transparent. Chancellor Robert Corlew ruled to void the approval of the mosque because officials didn’t give adequate public notice before construction was approved. Chancellor Corlew pointed out that while notice was printed in the paper advising of the meeting, the print was too small to be called a notice.
A valid question should be asked: has there EVER been a house of worship in Murfreesboro that’s been more reported on than the Islamic Center? There’s probably never been another building in Murfreesboro, period, to get so much attention. What hermit didn’t get proper notice that this thing was being built and that this vote was taking place? This story has been reported in virtually every major news outlet in the nation. If the plaintiffs are claiming that they didn’t get enough notice, then I am surprised that they have the cognitive ability to come to the conclusion that they didn’t get enough notice.
The original complaint was that the Islamic Center would cause too much traffic for the area, which wasn’t a complaint when the World Outreach Church or any other churches for that matter were being built. Joe Brandon was quoted by The Daily News Journal as stating, “This is the Lord’s battle, and that’s God, not Allah.” The story also stated that he had the flag of Israel in his office and a Bible open to the book of Exodus on his desk. They seem to indicate that his personal motivation might be some type of Christian Zionism, which I won’t dig into, but just to say that if you are waiting for some holy chain reaction to take place when all the Jewish people return to Israel, then you might be a bit biased and delusional when it comes to people of the Islamic faith. This probably doesn’t matter unless you take Brandon seriously when he says he might run for judge.
People like Joe Brandon keep harping about Sharia law and how I suppose they think it’s going to poison us all. How about we worry about the actual laws that someone might break and ignore some religious law that someone of that faith may or may not adhere to? Like in Christianity, how many biblical laws do Christians just decide not to follow? Most Christians do not follow the more unreasonable Christians laws, because if they didn’t they’d be considered lunatics. To my knowledge, even the homophobic Reverend Fred Phelps hasn’t even stoned a gay person to death yet.
These people need to relax and let America work the way it works. Everybody has a right to their religion no matter how delusional, absurd and unrealistic one’s opinions might be. This goes for Christians, Mormons and people of the Islamic faith. If you are worried about this becoming a terrorist breeding ground, then calm yourself down, and start to worry when you see people training on monkey bars and wielding Kalashnikovs. Let the people build their house of worship. Anything else seems a bit un-American.
So if you stand up for what you believe it and speak out against what you feel is an impending issue you are a coward. This is a land built on strident debate but with the polarizing anonymity of the internet and the constant approval of the lowest common denominator we have turned constructive debate into basic sophomoric name calling. To me the argument is not if they ARE allowed to build their new mosque and expand within our community but rather they SHOULD BE allowed. If you study this issue in depth and relate it to the numerous examples both within the US ( IE Dearborn, MI ) and outside our borders ( IE Spain ) any rational human being cannot help but come to a large number of negative conclusions without any stretch of imagination. Read the Quran in its own context and study the people that you are defending before beating your drums.
Comment June 14, 2012 @ 11:22 pm
There are MILLIONS of Muslims in the world. They already have a Mosque. It’s just too small because more and more people practice the Muslim religion here. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to build bigger facilities, Mike? Do you know where the Mosque is now? Wouldn’t you? Extremists don’t want you to know where they are, who they are. These people just want to practice their religion in a nice, new, OPEN environment.
Comment June 15, 2012 @ 2:04 pm
I did not say that they are not allowed to expand – legally I do believe there is little basis for that argument. What I said was that this is an unfortunate situation in that they SHOULD not be allowed further expansion. The argument that there is a large number of Muslims does not validate their claim to a peaceful nature nor does it validate the correctness of their beliefs. Many would argue that Christians are wrong in the beliefs that they hold yet there are a very large number of Christians as well. Keep in mind that there were about 9 million members of the Nazi party at one point and approximately 16 million in the service of their army. And NO I am not directly comparing Muslims to Nazis’ I am using this as an illustrative tool since even though there were Millions of Nazis’ it is hard to argue that their end goal was all that amiable to those around them and not all of them were violent by any means – Just the ones that mattered. My argument is that you should do some actual research and study on the situation in its entirety. Take a look at the big picture and were this situation is likely to lead to. This does not require any great stretches of the imagination since there are many historical and current examples to choose from. Take a look at the current political and social environment of Australia for example were Muslims are denying the authority of the Australian government and are self enforcing sharia law in an ever expansive way. This same thing is also happening in the UK, France, Spain, Parts of Canada, significant regions of Russia, and many of the smaller countries of the EU. And in every single one of these cases the initial influx of Muslims argued that they were strictly peaceful and had no political desires. The inherent problem is that the Muslim faith is not just simply a religious belief structure but is intertwined with an extensive legal, military, and social structure as well. When it comes down to it the core of their beliefs does not involve a peaceful nature toward the non believer. Here are a few direct quotes from the English Qu’ran and I have included as much context as reasonable but feel free to look the up yourself for the full context and I think you will find that there meaning is in no way ambiguous nor different than what is implied here
5 : 51 – You who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrong doing people.
98 : 6 – Indeed, they who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures.
3 : 32 – Say, “Obey Allah and the Messenger.” But if they turn away – then indeed, Allah does not like the disbelievers.
9: 29 – Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.
9: 123 – O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous.
I do also appreciate the opportunity for a civil discussion of this issue.
Comment June 15, 2012 @ 7:34 pm