Security is focus at churches, mosques amid heightened fears

[struggle4progress]

... The Council on American-Islamic Relations said 2015 is shaping up as the worst year ever for U.S. mosques, amid the backlash to the Islamic-extremist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and the intensifying anti-Muslim rhetoric from Donald Trump and others seeking the GOP presidential nomination. Preliminary 2015 data collected by the civil rights organization found 71 reported cases of vandalism, harassment and threats, with 29 of those incidents occurring since the Nov. 13 assaults in France.

The Anti-Defamation League, which works to secure Jewish sites, has been organizing safety training around the country with other faith groups, including an Austin, Texas, event with local police and the African Methodist Episcopal Churches of Greater Austin that drew participants from 35 churches and three mosques. The Charleston church attacked in June, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is part of the national African Methodist Episcopal denomination.

Christian churches have been refining their security plans ahead of receiving some of their largest crowds of the year for Christmas. On a FEMA webinar last Wednesday on protecting houses of worship, the chief security executive at The Potter’s House, the Rev. T.D. Jakes’ megachurch in Dallas, gave tips about behavior that should raise concern, such as a congregant arriving in a long coat in hot weather. If needed, church greeters could give a hug and feel for weapons, said the executive, Sean Smith ...

Congregations and other religious sites have long been targets of violence and vandalism, especially African-American churches going back at least to the civil rights movement. In 2007, a young man on a shooting spree killed two people at an evangelical ministry and two more at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 2012, a white supremacist killed six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. And last year, a white supremacist killed three people at a Jewish Community Center and retirement home in suburban Kansas City ...

http://www.wtvq.com/2015/12/19/security-is-focus-at-churches-mosques-amid-heightened-fears/