Charlotte interfaith group takes stand on Mooresville mosque construction
A Charlotte interfaith group called on its members Tuesday “to stand visibly” with a Mooresville mosque that a crowd pilloried at a recent town board meeting.
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“Religious liberty is more than a legal protection,” Nima Nematollahi, president of the Mecklenburg Metropolitan Interfaith Network board of directors said in a news release. “It is a basic principle of human dignity. It is a moral commitment to honor the founding principles of our country.”
Some in the crowd who packed the Aug. 3 Mooresville Board of Commissioners meeting to protest construction of the mosque said the town hadn’t been transparent about the Islamic Center of Lake Norman’s plans.
The crowd’s comments prompted a statement by the board 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 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 support those in Mooresville who’ve endured the Islamophobic remarks.
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In an Aug. 21 letter to the Islamic Center of Lake Norman, Nematollahi said his group encourages its members to express support for the mosque at the Sept. 8 town board meeting. Opponents have said they intend to pack the meeting.
“Each member of our community is entrusted to the care of the whole, so that no one’s safety in worship should depend on the goodwill of the majority,” Nematollahi said in a statement in Tuesday’s news release.
“The freedom to worship and establish a religious home belongs equally to people of every faith,” the Charlotte lawyer said. “We stand with ICLN because no community should face fear, isolation, or unequal treatment for how it worships.”
The Muslim community of Mooresville and the greater Lake Norman area has met the vitriol “with a steadfastness and grace that stand as an example to us all,” the Rev. LeDayne McLeese Polaski, executive director of the interfaith network said in the news release.
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