Excerpt:
The Township Council is beefing up its defense team, hiring a second lawyer to handle a lawsuit filed by a Muslim group alleging religious discrimination in a zoning battle over a proposed mosque.
The Al Falah Center filed its suit in April in federal district court in New Jersey, claiming that a township zoning ordinance was drafted with the sole purpose of preventing the group from turning a former 7.6-acre banquet hall property on Mountain Top Road into a house of worship.
The case, meanwhile, has caught the attention of the U.S. Justice Department, which has requested the township turn over copies of zoning documents and reports as part of a routine investigation into whether officials may have violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.