Sunday, August 14, 2011

No mosque in this neighborhood

""A mosque dispute in this Atlanta suburb is shining a spotlight on an antidiscrimination law increasingly pitting the Department of Justice against zoning officials across the country....In a report last year, the Department said mosques, as well as synagogues and African-American churches, were "particularly vulnerable'' to discriminatory zoning. Of its 26 probes of possible Religious Land Use violations involving mosques in the past decade, 16 were launched in the past 15 months...."I think they're coming over here and trying to take over as fast as they can, and that's scary to me,'' said Corrinna Hartman, 31, a local hospital administrator." A decent American "City council member Scott Batterton voted for the plan last December and intends to do so again, noting that other religious groups have been accommodated in Lilburn. "It may well cost me the election, but I think it's the right thing,'' said Mr. Batterton, who faces voters in November.""