Judge orders Mississippi city to allow mosque construction

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A new federal court order says a Mississippi city must allow construction of a mosque. A judge filed the order Monday, two months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city on behalf of two Muslim men. The lawsuit said Horn Lake officials were motivated by anti-Muslim prejudice when the city rejected a zoning request for the area’s first mosque. It would be the first mosque in DeSoto County, Mississippi, which is just south of Memphis, Tennessee. The plaintiffs and the city both agreed to the consent decree. An attorney for the ACLU says the order is “an important victory for religious freedom.”