JACKSON — The increasingly bellicose battle over the efforts of the Mississippi Muslim Association to build a mosque in Madison County is beginning to reek not of the zoning issues claimed by opponents but of religious intolerance and prejudice against Muslims.
Not so, claim neighbors in the U.S. 51 area who maintain their opposition is based on protection of zoning laws and the maintenance of their property values. Not so, claim public officials in the city of Madison and Madison County governments, who say they are just following the laws and ordinances.
But the fact that some in those governments and a few state legislators as well have been actively seeking legal cover to deny water and sewer services to the approximately 100 members of the Muslim community in Madison County who seek nothing more than to construct a mosque and worship as they see fit speaks a language all its own.
When’s the last time you remember local governments going into battle mode against the construction of a Protestant church, particularly in Madison County, one of Mississippi’s most church-friendly environs?
The notion that churches have a negative impact on residential or commercial property values is one is laughable on its face. If so, property values near the county’s more than 125 houses of worship — a number of which are located on prime real estate like Highland Colony Parkway and other tonier addresses — must react negatively only to houses of worship built for religious minorities like the Muslims.
Nor have property values been impacted in Oxford by the mosque constructed by the Oxford Muslim Society near the Ole Miss campus. Despite taking a hit from the recession, real estate values in Oxford remain high and the mosque hasn’t changed that.
There are also Muslim mosques in Starkville, Sumrall, Jackson and Vicksburg, and all exist without controversy or detriment to the broader communities.
On its face, the question of a Muslim mosque in Madison County appears headed to a peaceful, progressive resolution. The Madison County Board of Supervisors agreed to grant a special exception to Muslim Association petitioners seeking to build the mosque along U.S. Highway 51, near the city of Madison, though the special exception is subject to approval of the church’s site and building plans and the verification of all the mosque’s utilities.
But insiders say the vote by the supervisors could only serve to give Muslim families seeking to build a house of worship false hope. In order for the matter to be resolved, the city of Madison and the Bear Creek Water Association could still impede the availability of water and sewer services to the mosque.
Madison County Muslims, like those who sought to assimilate into progressive Mississippi communities like Oxford and Starkville, deserve the opportunity to build a house of worship and they should face no more or less opposition in that effort than would a prominent white Baptist or Methodist church under similar circumstances.
Madison County is a multi-cultural, highly diverse community. A mosque will only serve to compliment that status. Allowing fear and prejudice to impede the construction of a Muslim house of worship there would be a major step backward.
