STERLING HEIGHTS — The legal battle over whether a new mosque should be built in Sterling Heights rages on.

Seven residents opposing construction of the mosque filed a federal lawsuit this week against Sterling Heights and its mayor, Michael C. Taylor.

Attorney Robert J. Muise with the American Freedom Law Center, one of two lawyers who filed the lawsuit Monday, says the lawsuit is “complicated.”

The complaint makes numerous claims, including allegations Sterling Heights and the mayor violated Equal Protection Act, Open Meetings Act, First Amendment and is operating under an illegal consent order.

They claim Sterling Heights officials gave preferential treatment to Muslims involved in the mosque debate, and stifled the free religious speech of opponents, many of whom identify as Christian, including many Chaldeans who immigrated to the U.S. from Iraq.

David Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, and Muise, who is Catholic, founded the American Freedom Law Center in 2012 as “the nation’s first truly authentic Judeo-Christian, public interest law firm” to “fight for faith and freedom through litigation,” according to the firm’s website.

After multiple contentious public hearings that spurred anti-Muslim commentary, the Sterling Heights Planning Commission in September 2015 unanimously rejected construction of the mosque, not based on race or religion, they said, but on zoning laws.

“What they should do is probably have Homeland Security check these people out, just in case,” said resident Mike Gretel during that 2015 meeting. “You don’t know what’s going on. You know, they’re cutting people’s heads off, they killed our soldiers and everything … They scare me. They scare everybody.”

Following the initial denial, the American Islamic Community Center, which operates a mosque in Madison Heights and was behind the planning for another in Sterling Heights, filed a federal lawsuit.

The Department of Justice followed suit and filed another claiming the Sterling Heights mosque denial violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

The 20,500-square-foot mosque was to be built on 4.35 acres at 15 Mile and Mound near a residential area.

While the city limits structures to 30 feet in height, and the proposed mosque included a 58-foot dome and two 66-foot spires, the original lawsuit said the city made exceptions in the past for Christian churches, including one near the mosque location with a 75-foot steeple.

A public City Council meeting was conducted in February to discuss signing off on a federal consent agreement. The agreement included concessions by the mosque builders to bring their plans closer to zoning guidelines for the city, although exceptions would still be required.

The city also agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement amount in excess of $350,000, the city’s insurance deductible limit.

City Council allowed extensive public comment at that raucous February meeting, but the mayor forbade any religious discussion or criticism of Islam and cut off speakers or removed those who didn’t comply.

He said speech critical of another’s religion was “not relevant.” But that didn’t stop everyone.

“Have you ever read the verses in the Koran where they talk about killing all non-Muslims,” one man said before being cut off and told that his comments violated meeting rules.

One woman, who indicated she is Chaldean, a Christian who immigrated from Iraq to escape violence in the Middle East, said the mosque would “cause too much friction” between Christian and Muslim immigrants.

Sterling Heights is a popular destination for Chaldean immigrants who moved to the U.S. in many cases to escape violence or persecution in majority-Muslim Iraq.

Taylor stopped the meeting at one point due to numerous outbursts and cleared the auditorium when the unanimous vote to accept the government’s consent decree occurred. The public was then allowed to reenter.

The lawsuit

The latest federal complaint alleges the decision to enter the consent decree and allow the mosque violated zoning laws created to protect the general public.

By accepting the consent decree and the mosque construction plan, the city essentially approved special land use exceptions, the lawsuit says, in violation of the Michigan Zoning Enabling Act, which requires a 15-day notice to residents and the media before approval.

At the meeting, the lawsuit says the City Council only allowed speakers two minutes of speech, in violation of their own rules that say the City Council may reduce speaking times allotted from the usual six minutes to three.

The “speech restriction censored and chilled the speech of the” opponents, the lawsuit says.

While the complaint about building the mosque rests on zoning concerns, the lawsuit includes the religious and ethnic backgrounds of the Chaldean and Christian plaintiffs when it cites their opposition to the mosque.

“Kamal Anwiya Youkhanna is an adult citizen of the United States and a resident of Sterling Heights, Michigan,” reads an portion introducing the plaintiffs. “He is a Chaldean Christian, and he and his family are from Iraq, where Chaldean Christians have been subjected to violence and abuse from ISIS.”

He “opposes the construction of the AICC mosque at its proposed location.”

Moise called the silencing of religious speech at the meeting in a largely Chaldean community about the building of a mosque “absurd.”

It’s his belief the silencing of Christian opposition and criticism of Islam showed religious favoritism to the Muslim community and discriminated against Christians.

CAREview: Please visit the source link below to read the full lawsuit.