Richard Land withdrew from a group of religious leaders who support the right of Muslims to build mosques in the United States. Land, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, joined the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques (ICOM) as a charter member. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spearheaded the ICM's creation in response to increasing challenges to the construction of mosques and Islamic centers last summer.

Land said he did not quit the ICOM because of a change in his convictions but out of a need to represent the views of the SBC. In a letter to the ADL, Land wrote, "While many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship, they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is 'a bridge too far.'"

Land said that his involvement with ICOM was not a promotion of Islam, but he said this was the perception of many ...

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