Several Muslim leaders said the constitution was the winner Monday when a federal judge barred the Oklahoma Election Board from certifying an amendment prohibiting state courts from considering international or Sharia law.

A Muslim activist in Oklahoma City filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a voter-approved measure that bars Oklahoma state judges from considering Shariah, the Islamic religious code based on the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed's teachings, in formulating rulings.

All three men running for Congress in Virginia's 2nd District said that builders have a right to construct a mosque and community center near the site of the World Trade Center terror attacks in Manhattan, but all three said they hope the folks behind the project will reconsider.

Rep. André Carson is one of only two Muslims in Congress; the Indianapolis Democrat insists religion isn't that much of an issue with voters he meets.

The so-called Ground Zero mosque. The Florida pastor intent on torching Qurans. And the Disneyland hostess barred from wearing a hijab.

Oklahoma state Rep. Rex Duncan expects his "Save Our State" referendum to keep Islamic law out of state courts to pass easily on Nov. 2. He's less certain a similar measure could pass in Michigan.

Republican congressional candidate Renee Ellmers has released a television advertisement that calls the planned Muslim community center in New York City a "victory mosque" and associates it with terrorists.

Gov. Deval Patrick recalled Thursday being harassed by police officers as he bought candy as a youngster in Milton, saying it buttresses his belief in racial tolerance and religious freedom that extends to supporting the construction of a mosque near ground zero.

 The Labor Day parade was over and the flag-waving candidate was famished.

The five Republican candidates for the 3rd Congressional District were the latest to sound off yesterday on a controversial proposal to build a mosque and Islamic community center close to the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.

 Utah’s two major Senate candidates disagree on whether an Islamic center and mosque should be built near New York City’s Ground Zero.

Republicans seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer want a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion overturned and want to see the proposed New York City mosque moved farther away from ground zero.

 Georgia's gubernatorial hopefuls both said Thursday they oppose building a mosque near ground zero in New York City.

As vulnerable congressional Democrats weigh how to respond to President Barack Obama's statements on Muslims' right to build a mosque near ground zero, those in New York and closest to the controversy are staying silent or scrambling away.

As Republican candidates across the country seize on the proposed construction of a mosque near New York's Ground Zero as a campaign issue, some influential figures in the GOP are growing concerned that it could backfire.

The controversy over a proposed mosque near ground zero has become a national political issue, expanding its reach into individual U.S. House races far from Lower Manhattan in every conceivable way: for example, Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District.

A planned mosque near the site of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks - suddenly a topic of national conversation after President Obama weighed in Friday - drew noticeably different responses from Florida's leading Democratic Senate candidates in their fourth and final debate today.

 Seeking the middle ground on a polarizing issue, Rep. Joe Sestak said that as long as constitutional rights are respected, it's up to New Yorkers to make the decisions on a proposal to build an Islamic study center and mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center.

Republican Congressional candidates on Monday intensified efforts to inject the divide over construction of an Islamic center near ground zero into the midterm campaigns while the Senate’s top Democrat said he objected to the mosque being built there.

The top Republican in charge of Senate campaigns said Sunday that President Obama's support of a Muslim group's right to build an Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York would become an issue in the fall elections.

While a high-profile battle rages over a mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, heated confrontations have also broken out in communities across the country where mosques are proposed for far less hallowed locations.

Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White agree that while plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero have stirred controversy, they don't object to a local decision affirming the Islamic group's right to build it.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's eloquent and at times emotional speech in defense of a proposed mosque near ground zero this week is already being called the most stirring of his career as a public official.

The debate over a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero became a court fight Wednesday, as a conservative advocacy group sued to try to stop a project that has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who this spring became the state’s first sitting governor to visit a mosque, lent his support yesterday to an Islamic Center proposed near ground zero, stepping into the middle of a growing national furor over locating a Muslim house of worship so near the site of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

President Obama, who made outreach to Muslims a central theme of his first year in office, has decided to sit out the national debate now raging over the plan to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

Mosques aren't roiling just New York. Plans to build a Muslim worship center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., have taken a front seat in two major political races that Tennessee voters will decide Thursday.

The mosque planned for Ground Zero is expected to pass a major hurdle Tuesday.

With city approval of a proposed mosque and Islamic center two blocks away from Ground Zero nearly secured, the battle over the project is moving away from zoning boards to the court of public opinion.

An influential Jewish organization on Friday announced its opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero in Lower Manhattan, intensifying a fierce national debate about the limits of religious freedom and the meaning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Hours after a lower Manhattan community board recommended that the city not grant landmark designation to a building expected to be turned into a mosque near Ground Zero, opponents of the project threatened to go to court to stop demolition of the 1850s Italian Renaissance structure.

Comments by Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey suggesting that Islam might be a cult and that Muslims might not qualify for constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms drew criticism from Islamic groups Tuesday and an eruption of national media attention.

A loosely organized protest planned this week over a proposed new mosque in Temecula whose organizers urged demonstrators to bring their dogs was sharply denounced by a Southern California Islamic organization Tuesday.

Former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich on Wednesday announced his opposition to a planned mosque near ground zero, becoming the latest Republican leader to place the project on the national political stage.

Several proposed Islamic centers, including one near Ground Zero, have touched off a heated nationwide debate that raises questions about the state of religious tolerance in post-9/11 America.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that he strongly disagreed with Sarah Palin's call for New Yorkers to reject a proposed Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero—and, for a brief moment, it sounded like he called the former Alaska governor a racist.

Sarah Palin, who waded into a New York political fight by endorsing Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25, is drifting into a decidedly higher-charged battle: The fray over a planned mosque near Ground Zero.

Ex-Rutherford Co. GOP Chair Lou Ann Zelenik (R) called for an investigation into the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, as she said the center is secretly pursing a "radical agenda" based on online postings.

Two major broadcasters have rejected an advertisement that urges viewers to protest a mosque being constructed two blocks from Ground Zero.

Hundreds of people are participating in a protest march on East Main Street to the Courthouse concerning the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro's new facility on Veals Road.

Two major broadcasters have rejected an advertisement that urges viewers to protest a mosque being constructed two blocks from Ground Zero.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio and opponents of a planned mosque near Ground Zero yesterday demanded that owners reveal their funding source for the $100-million project a day after Mayor Bloomberg said to do so would be "un-American."

The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee said Monday he favors an investigation into the funding of a proposed mosque near ground zero in New York City.

Dozens of opponents and some supporters of a mosque planned near ground zero attended a raucous hearing Tuesday about whether the building where the Muslim place of worship would be created warrants designation as a city landmark and should be protected from development.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio on Tuesday called on his Democratic rival, Andrew Cuomo, to investigate the development of a $100 million mosque being planned near ground zero.

Holy wars are breaking out all over New York. Three separate plans to build Muslim worship centers in New York City have proved more difficult and contentious than expected, igniting protests by local residents and anti-jihad activists and prompting charges of "Islamophobia" and bigotry.

They're separated by thousands of miles, but they share a common controversy: Mosques. Murfreesboro, Tenn., has joined a growing list of midsized towns in the U.S. that are embroiled in conflicts over proposed mosques being built or bought in their neighborhoods.

Plans for a new Islamic center south of Murfreesboro have some residents denouncing the Muslim religion and others calling the dispute one of the ugliest displays of religious intolerance in the county's history.