Judge Chancellor Robert Corlew of Tennessee Rutherford County stopped Murfreesboro mosque construction

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Construction of a Tennessee mosque that has been strongly opposed by critics of Islam likely will be stopped after a judge ruled Tuesday that local officials didn't give the public adequate notice before the meeting where it was approved.
The mosque 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 found that the Rutherford County Planning Commission didn't do enough to inform the public of the May 2010 meeting when it approved the site plan for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.
Though his ruling voids the approval, he noted there was nothing stopping the commission from reconsidering the issue and voting on the mosque site plan again, as long as any action they take is for "non-discriminatory reasons."
Saleh Sbenaty, a spokesman for the mosque, said the ruling was disappointing but his group remained committed to building the Islamic center. They have been worshipping for many years at a smaller site in Murfreesboro, a booming city of about 100,000 people southeast of Nashville.
Lead plaintiff Kevin Fisher wrote in an email, "Justice is served."
The opponents of the Tennessee mosque have fought for two years to stop construction. During lengthy hearings in 2010, they presented testimony that in effect put Islam on trial. A string of witnesses questioned whether Islam is a legitimate religion and promoted a theory that American Muslims want to replace the Constitution with extremist Islamic law and the mosque was a part of that plot.
The judge dismissed those allegations but held a trial on the narrower claim that the public meeting law was violated because meeting notice wasn't adequate. The meeting notice was published in the Murfreesboro Post, a free weekly newspaper that had a circulation of about 21,000 at the time of the legal advertisement was placed.
The ruling noted that only about 196 papers were placed in racks in unincorporated areas of the county, despite the fact that approximately one-third of the county's more than 250,000 people live in those are


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/murfreesboro-mosque-const_n_1553622.html