Officials deny they voted down plan because of Baptist opposition
A Baptist church in Ohio is being accused of religious intolerance for allegedly thwarting a plan to build a mosque on nearby property.
The board of zoning appeals in Sugarcreek Township, Ohio, insists its 5-0 vote against a variance request that would have permitted the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton to build the mosque was not influenced by the local First Baptist Church. The rejection, officials say, was based only on the expected sewage and traffic impact, the Dayton Daily News reported.
But the senior pastor of the 1,900-member church, Barry Jude, has made his opposition to the mosque clear.
"We just feel that Christianity is right and that Islam is wrong," Jude told the Daily News. "Therefore, we take a stand to see (a mosque) not in our community. The wonderful thing about our American culture is that you have the right to speak out against something you don't support."
The paper says the issue "has touched on larger questions: Does the presence of a mosque locally evoke feelings of fear or even hatred? Are church officials saying out loud what a lot of people are thinking privately?"
The Islamic Society of Greater Dayton says it will consider its options now, including a legal appeal. The plan is to build a mosque for up to 975 people and a family center for up to 400 on 15 acres it owns.
The society, on its website, notes its association with the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust, which both were named last summer as "unindicted co-conspirators" in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas.
Federal prosecutors also named the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, as a participant in a plot with five officials of the defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
The Dayton paper quoted a CAIR spokeswoman, Karen Dabdoud, who said she was surprised by the zoning board's rejection. At a public hearing in October, she said, township officials "told us this was a pretty simple and straightforward application and they didn't see any problems with it."
"This kind of thing is unfortunately very common across the country," Dabdoud told the Daily News. "It's usually framed in terms of traffic and property values, but underneath it is a situation of religious tension."
CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR founder Omar Ahmad allegedly told a group of Muslims they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country.
As WND reported, a Christian minister suing to halt the planned construction of a huge Florida mosque says he hopes to gain access to previously undisclosed financial information of CAIR.
'Power of the sword'
The Dayton paper reported that several days before the zoning board meeting, a local Methodist pastor and his wife, also a pastor, received a phone call from a woman urging local residents to attend the meeting in opposition to the mosque.
The caller said the mosque should be blocked "because of what it says in the Quran, and these are bad people," said Brooks Heck, pastor of South Park United Methodist Church in Dayton. His wife, Terry, is pastor of Bellbrook United Methodist Church.
However, Sugarcreek Township Administrator Barry Tiffany insisted, "I can tell you that religion was never brought into it by the board at any time."
Jude said he was unaware of any calling campaign prior to the board meeting. But he affirmed there had been announcements at his church urging local residents to oppose the zoning.
The pastor said he has told his congregation "to hate the sin but love the sinner" when it comes to Islam. "We're here to promote Christ and his kingdom ... and we want to lovingly do that," he told the Dayton paper. "Obviously, there are wonderful people who are Islamic."
The Daily News reported Sunday its discovery of a CD recording offered by the church that features a talk by a former Muslim, Shahram Parvani, who declared, "Islam is not a religion of peace."
Parvani, speaking to an audience of about 500 at the church Oct. 28, also stated Muslims "want to control, they want to dominate" and spread their religion "by the power of the sword."
He said that less Christians stop Muslims from buying land and setting up their own facilities in the U.S., what "happened in Europe is going to happen to us."
"The Islamic Council of the United Kingdom is buying up every single church that closes and they pay cash for it. As soon as the (old) sign comes down, the Islamic sign goes up."
The Islamic Society of Greater Dayton says on its website that it purchased a church building in 1985 and remodeled it for its headquarters.
Its homepage bears a hadith – a saying from the life of Muhammad – that declares: "Who ever builds a Masjid (mosque) for Allah, Allah will Build for him a similar House in Paradise."
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