Politics

New Jersey Town Will Build Mosque After Federal Intervention

REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Kevin Daley Supreme Court correspondent
Font Size:

A town in New Jersey has settled an anti-discrimination suit with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), ending a years-long controversy over its refusal to grant a zoning permit for a local mosque.

The DOJ brought a case alleging that the Bernards Township Planning Board discriminated against the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) and violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) during a lengthy application process that ultimately resulted in the town’s denial of the proposed project.

The planning board voted to settle the suit and issue the requisite permits during a Tuesday night session. Most details of the settlement have not yet been made public.

The DOJ alleged that the town contrived capricious zoning requirements to block the mosque’s construction for over five years. The township applied fire safety standards to the project that far exceeded those established for similar ventures, changed the number of required parking spots to an arbitrary figure (hindering the mosque’s ability to comply with local lighting and drainage standards), and amended parliamentary rules governing planning board hearings so that supporters of the mosque were granted prohibitively less time to speak in favor of their project.

The planning board also claimed that the mosque’s storm-water management (SWM) plan was inadequate, despite previously approving the project’s SWM proposal.

“RLUIPA ensures that municipalities must treat religious land use applications like any other land use application,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement when the suit was first lodged. “But here, township officials kept moving the goalposts by using ever-changing local requirements to effectively deny this religious community the same access as other faiths.”

Federal officials also recovered evidence in emails exchanged between town officials that they claim reveals a pattern of anti-Islamic bigotry. In one message a planning board official claimed that Islam “owes its size and influence to a tradition from Day 1 of forced conversions through violent means.” Other township officials speculated that former President Barack Obama was a Muslim.

“Man child,” wrote town board member John Carpenter of the former president. “The product of fools, raised by idiots and coddled by affirmative action. Behold the beast.”

“As elected leaders, our goal is to promote the quiet and peaceful use of property for all members of our community,” the town said in a statement. “Settlement, in our opinion and that of our legal counsel, represents the most effective path forward to mitigate the financial risk of protracted litigation as well as resolve the issue of the ISBR’s proposed Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque in Liberty Corner.”

Similar federal suits are pending in Bensalem, Penn. and Culpepper County, Va.

Follow Kevin on Twitter

Send tips to kevin@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel