Tenn. Muslims Face Resistance to Plans

[Rose Siding]

SOMERVILLE, Tenn. -- Muslims planned to turn an old sod farm near Memphis into a cemetery, but angry neighbors protested, complaining the burial ground could become a staging ground for terrorists or spread disease from unembalmed bodies.

It was not the first time a group faced opposition when trying to build a cemetery or a mosque, but the dispute stood out for the clarity of its anti-Muslim rhetoric.

"We know for a fact that Muslim mosques have been used as terrorist hideouts and centers for terrorist activities," farmer John Wilson told members of a planning commission last month.
...
"Ladies and gentlemen, you may think this is farfetched, but that is what the Jewish people thought when the Nazis started taking a small foothold, a little at a time, in their community," Wilson said.

In a telephone interview later, Wilson said he and his neighbors are primarily worried about their property values, but, he added, news reports cannot be ignored.

"I don't think anyone who has read the newspaper or seen what investigations have gone on about other mosques would not have those kinds of concerns," he said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-muslim-cemeteries,0,6252955.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[latteromden]

1. Muslims = Nazis?!

I don't quite know what to say.

[InvisibleBallots]

14. "primarily concerned about property values"

That says it all - what better way to keep them away than some good old fashioned anti-Muslim hysteria?

[Been Fishing]

16. Do property values = moral values?

Maybe it should be value$.

[Pithlet]

2. My neck of the woods.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Muslim cemeteries are used as centers for terror activities???

WTF?

:wtf:

[Tempest]

6. You had to know someone would take zombie movies seriously

Sounds like he needs to switch from horror movies to romantic comedies.

[TahitiNut]

15. Of course they'd be centers for terrorists - it's obvious.

The KKK would burn crosses there and the Kristyun Krusaders would gather on a nearby Grassy Knoll anytime they had a funeral. It'd be a magnet for every knuckle-dragging, redneck God-fearer with a rifle in the winder of his stars-n-barz-emblazoned pick-up.


Random thought: I think the descriptive adjective "God-fearing" is very appropriate. I'd be afraid of God if I were in league with the devil, too.

[The Magistrate]

4. This Mr. Wilson, Ma'am

Seems rather an ulra-maroon....

[Eric J in MN]

5. Jews don't embalm corpses,either.

What a bigot.

[SariesNightly]

8. Freeper territory

Whoever proposed this sort of logic is practically shooting their own foot.

[donsu]

9. I'm not jewish and I've left instructions not to embalm me

racism is so ugly

ignorance is so sad

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. the only thing that has happened at mosques here in the us

is that people pray-or wingnuts like this make bomb threats and/or drive their cars into them.

[Rose Siding]

10. another snip...

snip>
Belinda Ghosheh, owner of the five-acre plot being considered for the cemetery, said a meeting of planning officials drew such a hostile crowd she feared for her safety. One woman yelled, "We don't need bin Laden's cousins in our neighborhood."

Ghosheh and her husband, a native of the Middle East who has been a U.S. citizen for more than 20 years, live in neighboring Shelby County.

"These people would possibly have been our neighbors if we had decided to build on that property," she said. "If this doesn't go through, we're still getting rid of it. I would never live out there now."

[schrodinger_I]

11. Used to be my neck of the woods

There is a lot of intolerance and ignorance in that area. I think the whole Southeast should just become a separate country. The commonality would be backwards thinking, intolerance, and poor education systems. Just my $0.02.

[jellybelly]

12. I feel sorry for them...

these poor ignorant people. They never met a muslim person and don't know anything about Islam. Islam is the most strict, conservative religion on the planet. I thought these freeps would like that and embrace a mosque instead, let's say of a go-go bar or a Hooters.

[VegasWolf]

13. They've got the wrong god for tennessee. n/t

[KDLarsen]

17. We just had the same problem in Denmark..

.. only that there was a bit of concern about the price of the property (it was the state that sold the property).

The spokesman for the organization that bought the land, said that the issue placed great emotional stress on the relatives of dead muslims, that they were forced to send their loved ones body out of the country to recieve a proper burial.

It should be a fundemental right for all to recieve a correct burial according to their beliefs. I personally have a wish for my own burial when that time comes (in 50-odd years :) )