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by Susannah Cole The Pete Santilli Show & The Guerilla Media Network
A report by the nonprofit Onondaga Citizens League last summer said more than 7,200 refugees have resettled in the Syracuse area over the past 10 years, with the majority from Burma, Bhutan and Somalia and now it appears they will have a Mosque.
The Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board voted Thursday morning to allow an Islamic group to cut the crosses off the steeples of a former Catholic Church that is considered a protected landmark and not suppose to be altered. The preservation board also approved the learning center’s request to erect a fence around a portion of the church property.
The North Side Learning Center bought the former Holy Trinity Church at 501 Park St. in December. The nonprofit, all-volunteer organization, which provides literacy education for adults and children, paid $150,000 for the church campus, which also includes a rectory and school. Northside Learning Center rented the church to a group that’s creating the mosque, but many of the main players are the same. Soule, a Muslim, has been the public point-person for the mosque effort. He estimated the mosque will be used by about 5,000 Muslims.
There were about 50 people at the meeting. About a dozen people spoke and the comments were evenly divided. Steve Angiolillo, who lives in the neighborhood and whose family attended Holy Trinity, urged the board vote against removing the crosses.
“To change the craftsmanship, character and design of this building is not in keeping with landmark preservation,” Angiolillo said.
Camille Tisdel urged the board to approve the change. She has watched the old church sit, unused. The mosque, she said, would both fill up the church and provide the area’s growing Islamic community with a place to pray.
The board has no standing to interfere with a decision that impacts religious freedom, said board Chairman Don Radke. Federal law prohibits this, he said.
If the board had voted against the removal the croses the Mosque would not have been allowed there as Islamic law prohibits the worship of symbols and idols.
Adding insult to injury Islamic religious leaders plan to call the Mosque, Masjid Eisa Ibn Marya – The Mosque of Jesus son of Mary.
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