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I live near this new mosque. I've seen the home now being used as a place of worship, and I've seen the pig pen.

Some points of interest:

Craig Baker's family has deep roots in Texas that go back before the Texas Revolution from Mexico. There are over 450 mentions of the Baker name in the Handbook of Texas, some of them fairly famous. It is not clear who in that long list is directly related to Craig Baker, but certainly some of them are. In any event, the Baker family were one of the pioneer settlers in this area.

To be strong armed to leave the family property by new neighbors, who have only owned their property for a week, is a bit ridiculous. Craig Baker has offered to pay for a polygraph test for himself and the two owners of the mosque to determine who is telling the truth about that strong arm tactic. So far, no takers.

To develop the land the way the mosque has indicated in the press will require something like 25 acres. The mosque currently owns 11 acres. Coincidentally, Craig Baker owns about 14 acres.

The owners of the mosque have been offered a million dollars for their land, which they purchased for substantially less than that amount. Until today, they have refused to even discuss that offer. Today they told a reporter that the offer was way too low for them to purchase an alternative site.

The mosque has rebuffed requests from several surrounding home owners associations to discuss their plans. The mosque has been, and continues to be, very opaque about their plans. Further, they have begun construction of a parking lot without appropriate County approval. That has been stopped by local citizens and the mosque is now going through the approval process.

Local residents also protested when a Baptist Church was developed in the area, because the church destroyed a large number of trees and installed intrusive parking lights. Eventually, agreement was reached on using about 1/10th the number of lights, to lessen the impact on the neighbors. The point of this is that the community has a history of resisting intrusions that impact the quality of life as perceived by the residents, no matter what the religion. The opposition to the mosque really is not a religious thing at all.

Islam as a culture has become viewed with suspicion throughout out the world, by people who are not members of that culture. The reasons are obvious. Locally, two aspiring Muslim jihadists were arrested within the past few days and charged with conspiracy to aid the Taliban. The arrests followed their observed firearms training in a facility north of Houston owned by the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.

Part of the basis for suspicion is the stated philosophy that lying and deceiving outsiders is an acceptable tactic within Islam, if it furthers that group's aims.

Because of the existing well founded suspicion of Islamic culture, it is incumbent of the developers of the local mosque to be particularly open and transparent with their plans and intentions. Otherwise, the surrounding community justifiably views their intentions with concern and dismay.