Tensions mount over Lake Norman mosque as both sides pack town meeting
Tensions mounted Tuesday night over a planned Lake Norman mosque, as opponents and proponents packed a Mooresville Board of Commissioners meeting to speak their piece.
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For two hours, about 130 people listened to 29 speakers for and against the mosque. Applause followed most of the speakers from those who supported their respective sides of the issue.
Grading for the mosque has begun, and leaders of the Islamic Center of Lake Norman told The Charlotte Observer Tuesday that they plan to build and open their house of worship in 2027.
“We’re obviously here to listen,” Mayor Chris Carney told the crowd before the public comments began, but, he said, houses of worship have been permitted by right on the 5.5-acre site off Singleton Road since 1998.
That did little to assuage opponents, who gathered on the lawn of town hall two hours before the meeting to pray.
Police used metal detectors and checked the contents of bags before allowing people into the meeting 45 minutes before its start. Those are unusual practices at Mooresville town board meetings.
During the meeting, opponents said America was founded on Christian principles. They raised concerns about Islamic extremism and what they called violence against women and the lack of women’s rights in countries under Islamic rule.
“Prevent them from following their religion and bringing death to America,” a man told the board.
“It’s time to wake up,” a minister against the mosque said to applause
“No Islamic Center or Sharia law in Mooresville,” a woman said, citing the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Many in the crowd stood when resident Jan Wright asked how many were concerned their property values will drop with construction of the mosque.
Opponents also raised transparency questions, saying the mayor should have made it public when the town first learned the mosque would be built.
Seventeen speakers spoke against the mosque and a dozen in favor.
Mosque supporters said Muslims have been in the community for decades, are doctors and other professionals and are your neighbors. Everyone has the freedom to practice their religion under the Constitution, they said.
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Rabbi Becca Diamond of Temple Kol Tikvah in Davidson spoke during the meeting and at a news conference at the Islamic Center of Lake Norman off Williamson Road hours before the town board meeting.
“I was horrified by the anti-Islamic comments made at the last town board meeting,” Diamond said at the new conference attended by 15 leaders of various denominations. “We are all children of Adam and Eve and share a common humanity.”
Diamond was referring to the Aug. 3 town board meeting where some in the crowd made anti-Islamic comments about the mosque.
“We are not strangers asking to become your neighbors,” Al Rieder, N.C. manager for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said during the board meeting. “We are your neighbors.”
James Iredell, an early associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for whom Iredell County is named, defended the rights of Muslims to hold office, Rieder said.
“To our opponents, our doors are open,” Rieder said. “As Fred Rogers said, ‘Won’t you be our neighbors?’”
Tuesday night’s Board of Commissioners meeting was the second packed by mosque opponents this summer.
Some in the crowd at the Aug. 3 Mooresville Board of Commissioners meeting said the town hadn’t been transparent about the Islamic Center of Lake Norman’s plans.
Those comments prompted a statement by the board that night that the property’s longtime zoning allows for houses of worship. That meant no vote by the board was required to allow construction of the mosque.
During the Aug. 3 meeting, speakers also made anti-Islamic comments about the mosque. Leaders of Charlotte’s Islamic community gathered outside the Government Center in uptown Charlotte Aug. 11 to support those in Mooresville who endured the Islamophobic remarks.
Weeks later, a Charlotte interfaith group called on its members “to stand visibly” with the Mooresville mosque.
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This story was originally published September 8, 2026 at 10:18 PM.
