Religious Freedom For All: Supreme Court Declines To Hear Case Against Tennessee Mosque | Americans United

Perhaps we ought to thank the ICM’s opponents for providing the country with such a terrific example of the First Amendment’s importance to the principle of religious liberty. Time and again, the courts have ruled that Muslims, like all people of faith (including non-theists) have a right to the free expression of their deeply held personal beliefs.
__
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case against the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM), the target of antagonistic legal action from community residents since 2010.

Plaintiffs had claimed that Rutherford County officials failed to give the community adequate public notice prior to the ICM’s construction -- if true, this would constitute a minor violation of county ordinances. But the plaintiffs failed to prove this violation actually occurred, and there’s strong evidence suggesting their concerns have been fuelled by virulent anti-Muslim prejudice, not facts.

As Religion News Service reports, the plaintiffs and their attorneys, Joe Brandon Jr. and Tom Smith, argued in court that Islam is not truly a religion and therefore did not qualify for First Amendment protections. Brandon also asserted that the mosque’s construction had been orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a nefarious plan to “raise the flag of Shariah” over the U.S.

“Shariah law is pure sedition,” he told a court in 2010.

Sadly for Brandon, there’s no evidence that the ICM and its supporters intend to implement Shariah in Rutherford County and as a result, his arguments didn’t impress lower courts, which repeatedly ruled against him. Now that the high court has rejected his request for an appeal, the lower court rulings stand and the mosque’s status is secure.


Religious Freedom For All: Supreme Court Declines To Hear Case Against Tennessee Mosque | Americans United