Perhaps I should have included humor in the category selection for this post. But it is no laughing matter. Religious clashes in public and civic matters hardly ever are. And that such senseless debates keep erupting with sickening regularity, makes me want to cry in frustration. Not far from my own home, in a suburb of Houston, a ridiculous drama involving a proposed mosque, surroundind homes and a shop owner has taken a bizarre turn. Pigs too are involved.
Craig Baker, a stone and marble shop owner in Katy, Texas, was asked to close his shop and move from the land that his family has owned since the 1800s. (I think the main thoroughfare in the area is named after his family.) The request came from the Katy Islamic Association who has acquired the land next to Baker’s where it plans to build an Islamic cultural complex which includes a mosque. Baker is outraged. To express his annoyance at the mosque builders, he has acquired some pigs and plans to race them every week on his land adjacent to the planned mosque during Friday prayers. The pig racing is not sitting well with the Islamic group which has denied asking Baker to move.
The proposed Islamic Center has also attracted negative attention from surrounding home owners who are worried about increased traffic on the two lane country road which is the only access to the site. I have no opinion on the conflict between the mosque and the neighborhood subdivisions. But on the matter between Baker and the mosque, my sympathies are with Baker if his claim is true; although he can easily hold his ground without the provocation of the racing pigs. The Islamic Association has no business in asking him to move his shop to make room for their religious activities.
Read the entire story about this hogwash here.
KATY — All snout and tail, the pink and brown pigs contentedly rooting in the wire pen behind Craig Baker’s stone shop seem piggishly comic. They’re racing pigs, after all, and that’s got to be funny.
But few in the sprawling subdivisions along Baker Road are laughing.
These pigs are subtle weapons, here to show the new neighbors — the Katy Islamic Association — they aren’t entirely welcome. Tension has been growing in this west Harris County community since September when the Muslim group announced it had purchased 11 acres south of Interstate 10 to build a mosque, school, community center and athletic facilities.
Hard feelings started when Baker met association officials, who, he said, advised him he should move his stone shop.
"They told me it was time for my family to pack up," said Baker, whose family has occupied its land since the early 1800s. "They said a mosque and a marble shop didn’t go too good together."
Angered by the perceived insult and aware of Islamic dietary laws banning pork consumption, Baker responded by announcing he would stage weekly pig races on his Muslim neighbors’ holiest day of prayer.
Since then, the conflict has escalated as residents called a town hall meeting to discuss the planned complex and an anti-mosque page featuring a cartoon pig and a running tally of terrorism victims was posted on the Internet. Numerous complaint calls have been made to county officials.
Claims and counterclaims have flown. Critics raise concerns about traffic congestion, flooding, possible adverse impact on property values and the "unknown."
"One of our concerns is what the mosque will look like," said Karen Olson, president of the 120-family Windsor Park Estates Neighborhood Association. " … We look at mosques in other parts of town and they have gold domes. They’re big white structures that stand out. We’re concerned about what we can do as a community to get a development that fits in and doesn’t ruin things."
Spokesmen for the Islamic group said the fears are unfounded, noting that they intend to comply with county building codes "110 percent" and that attendance at the largest services will probably not exceed 30 worshippers. Their Baker Road neighbors will be welcome to look at plans for the complex, they said, as the project is developed.
Traffic concerns, Olson said, top her group’s list of worries. Baker Road, she said, is a narrow, two-lane country thoroughfare, and she is concerned that frequent prayer services at the mosque could paralyze traffic in an area that already is home to four large subdivisions. She also worried that heavy traffic might increase maintenance costs for her association, which owns a stretch of a street connecting Fry and Baker roads."
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