JOSEPHINE, Texas—This rural town with farmland stretching to the horizon might as well be a million miles away from New York City with its skyscrapers and big-city worries.
But the residents of the Big Apple and Josephine have something in common—controversy over the construction of a mosque.
Perhaps not since the “Ground Zero Mosque” was proposed two blocks from the World Trade Center site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has a mosque drawn so much attention.
The proposed 2009 Manhattan mosque and Islamic cultural center was known as Park 51. It faced sharp public criticism for plans to place a symbol of Islam so close to where thousands died from an attack by radical jihadists. Groups such as Stop Islamization of America led to protests against “radical Islam” before the project was eventually abandoned….
In Texas, a 400-Acre Muslim Development Sparks Controversy
