Islamic Prayer Tower Rises Over South St. Louis City The South St. Louis skyline is getting a new addition... ...An Islamic prayer tower complete. In the last decade 50,000 Bosnians have moved to St. Louis and many to the South City Bevo Mill neighborhood. St. Louis today is thought to hold the largest Bosnian population in the nation. So to make the local Bosnians feel more at home the local Islamic Center is putting up a prayer tower in the formerly Dutch and currently Bosniak neighborhood of Bevo Mill. They say they will not be using the tower to broadcast several times a day. This morning our informant up early and drove to the Islamic Center in South St. Louis and took a couple of photos of the new tower. Elsewhere, in Katy, Texas, a pig farmer has been asked to move his animals out, as a mosque and Islamic complex is planned for an 11 acre field next to his farm. Pigs are offensive to Islam. The farmer has responded by starting pig races on Fridays, the muslim holy day, and says he has no intentions of moving his farm, which has been in his family for 200 years. As for prayer towers, here is what one commentator said: "Having spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East, I know what these prayer towers sound like. And comparing them to church bells is just laughable. I could hear the thing IN my apartment shouting out the call to prayer several times a days, clear as anything. These things are LOUD. And the call is repetitive and never seems to end. It definitely got old, real real fast. "Shame on St. Louis for allowing this into our country." So how can it be allowed? Here's how: The law is 42 USC 2000cc (the "Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act). The general rule is that "No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly or institution (A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." In a nutshell, building regulations for churches, mosques, etc. are treated the same as race-conscious government actions. This is why the Feds should get their noses out of local zoning matters. Pat Franklin, a St Louisan, writes: "I am in mourning for my beloved country."