Mosque opponents paradoxically deny Islam religious status that the government defends.

Evidence

One unlikely site for such a protest was Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where the local Muslim community had been holding prayer services for years without attracting any notice. When the construction of a new Islamic Center was approved in 2010, organized resistance by mosque opponents took the form of arguing that Islam was not a religion protected by First Amendment guarantees, but a political movement aiming at the imposition of sharia law in America. The US Department of Justice disagreed and filed a brief maintaining that Islam has been recognized as a religion since the time of Thomas Jefferson (this action contrasts with the 1964 case in which the Department of Justice unsuccessfully argued against the religious status of the Nation of Islam, as discussed below by Edward Curtis). — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 28

Categorization

• XREF: The federal flip from denying Nation of Islam’s religious status (1964) to affirming Islam’s (2010) is a striking inversion worth tracking against Beydoun’s legal analysis in later chapters.
• QUESTION: Does the Justice Department’s changed stance reflect genuine principle or shifting political calculus on which Muslim groups to police versus protect?