Fox News is again trying to drum up “controversy” around the Park51 Islamic community center in Manhattan. On Sunday, Fox Nation re-published a New York Post article claiming that “community programs” no longer exist at Park51, just Muslims praying. From there, Fox and Friends discussed the latest “development” on Park51. “It’s all pray and no play,” host Gretchen Carlson said and complained that the center isn’t hosting community programs and is instead attracting Muslims for prayer. Noted Islamophobe Donald Trump cited the oft-repeated far-right claim that Muslims built the community center to celebrate victory on 9/11:

GRETCHEN CARLSON: It’s all pray and no play. The controversial Ground Zero Mosque was supposed to be a cultural center, but it turns out it’s now an empty space with no community programs. Dozens of worshipers gather at the site for prayer services, but that’s pretty much the only activity in the building aside from a small martial arts class.

BRIAN KILMEADE: … Donald, do you want to finance the mosque downtown?

STEVE DOOCY: The Mosque-erade

DONALD TRUMP: No, I don’t think so, I’d certainly buy the site. But I don’t think it’s an appropriate use of the site. A lot of people don’t. You know, in the Arab world, when they have victory, they like to build a Mosque at that site. It’s very strongly out there. I think this is a terrible idea. It shouldn’t be done and let’s see what happens…

Watch it:

Fox is recycling rhetoric from more than two years ago when anti-Islam activists like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer led an all-out war in their attempt to prevent the cultural center from opening. At the time, Fox News became a major broadcaster of their Islamophobic agenda. Back then, Fox gave anti-Islam activists a platform to make their virulent attacks against the proposed Park51 community center.

Multiple news organizations, like the Washington Post, debunked the fearmongering, pointing out that the “stated point of the project is creating a world where Jews, Christians and Muslims connect again in a way that builds mutual understanding and respect. This is precisely the opposite goal of the 9/11 terrorists.” Conservatives like Orrin Hatch supported Park51. And New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke up in favor of the center as well, saying that freedom of religion should be tolerated.

As far as Fox’s new angle goes, it’s hardly a new development that the center serves as a place of worship; it was always slated to provide a home for Muslim worshipers in Manhattan. And the lack of cultural events likely has more to do with the center’s perceived financial issues than with a sinister plot: last year, a rental dispute between the center and its landlord went to court.

But unlike two years ago, the center faces no legal hurdles from the city to continue operating in the site. New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission approved the center in 2010 and Mayor Bloomberg agreed. Park51 opened up last year without protests and little to no fanfare.

Construction site at the Mufreesboro mosque

What’s worse, Tennessee officialdom and national political figurues had flirted with some of the bigoted arguments against the construction. Tennessee’s Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R) suggested Islam might be “cult,” and the country sheriff brought in Islamophobic speakers on the topic. Then-GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain declared that “this isn’t an innocent mosque,” arguing with his usual befuddling logic that the construction was “an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion,” and that Americans “have a right” to deny other people the right to build places of worship.

But with the groundbreaking in September, the controversy seemed to have passed. Until yesterday, that is. That’s when further construction was thrown into question by a ruling from a local judge that the mosque’s building permits were not valid because notifications about a public hearing on the construction did not reach a wide enough audience. That, wrote the judge, Chancellor Robert Corlew, violated a state law requiring “adequate public notice.” He wrote in his ruling:

Without publication of the issues of business to be discussed at an otherwise routine meeting, citizens may be lulled into the mind set that only routine matters will be raised at a meeting, when suddenly a matter which is to them of earthshaking importance suddenly comes forth.

But county attorney Josh McCreary, who is defending the building permit, contended that the “earthshaking importance” of the building permit was only raised after the lawsuit against the permit. “In this instance, everything they are relying on to prove this is a matter of pervasive public importance came after the lawsuit was filed,” he said.

Opponents of the mosque have already declared victory. “Justice is served,” the lead plaintiff, Kevin Fisher, wrote to the AP in an e-mail. But it’s not clear that’s the case. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) already asked that, should new permits not be forthcoming, the Justice Department step in and “intervene in this case to support the religious rights of Tennessee Muslims.”

Furthermore, the Tennessean newspaper reported today that construction on the mosque expansion might not be ground to a halt by the judicial ruling. Noting that the judge did not order that construction stop, the Tennessean reported that the county that houses the mosque does not plan on revoking the permits:

Rutherford County has no immediate plans revoke the building permit for an embattled Murfreesboro mosque.

“The county is going to look at all the possibilities,” said Jim Cope, attorney for Rutherford County. “This could take weeks.”

The number of anti-Muslim groups in the U.S. tripled in 2011 according to a new report released last week by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The dramatic increase in anti-Muslim groups, according to SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok, occured as part of a rapid growth in “radical right” groups, “fueled by superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories, the changing racial makeup of America, and the prospect of four more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.”

Anti-Muslim groups, which jumped from 10 groups in 2010 to 30 in 2011, resulted from an growing political space for Islamophobia as politicians and anti-Muslim activists stirred up controversy over a planned Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan.

While the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy pushed fringe anti-Muslim activists like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer into the spotlight, the nationwide anti-Muslim movement gained more momentum with the “anti-Shariah” campaigns in various state legislatures. Anti-Shariah bills, which would forbid the use of Islamic Shariah law in state courts — “a completely unnecessary change, given that the U.S. constitution already rules that out,” writes Potok — have now been introduced in over twenty states.

Indeed, the SPLC is correct to point out the growth of anti-Muslim groups across the country. But, as discussed in the Center for American Progress’ report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, many of the anti-Shariah initiatives are styled on model legislation drafted by anti-Muslim attorney and right-wing activist David Yerushalmi.

Potok also credits Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) March 2011 hearings on the radicalization of U.S. Muslims and a “swelling of truly vicious propaganda” as demonizing American Muslims.

The SPLC also found sizable growth in anti-gay, black-separatist, Christian Identity, Klu Klux Klan, nativist extremist, neo-confederate, racist skinhead, and white nationalist groups.

As ThinkProgress documented, the congregants of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in Murfreesboro, Tennessee had been working for more than a year to gain approval for an expansion of the mosque and the building of an Islamic Center. While making their case for an expansion, these peaceful Muslims faced a vicious campaign of hate from far-right political activists in the state, which included Islamophobic accusations that they were trying to establish Sharia law in Tennessee, comments by the state’s lieutenant governor that Islam was a “cult,” and an arson attack.

Yet the mosque’s attendees overcame these trials, and the far-right political activists failed to convince Tennesseans, among whom only 28 percent objected to the expansion, according to polling conducted last October. Yesterday, the Murfreesboro Islamic Center finally broke ground on its mosque expansion, to the cheers of hundreds who came to celebrate, and without any controversy or threats. “We are not really celebrating the groundbreaking of this center. We are celebrating that liberty and freedom and religion exists as a fact in this nation,” said Ossama Bahloul, the mosque’s imam. “And we can be here in America and set an example for people.” Watch The Tennessean’s video report from the groundbreaking ceremony:

Given the past threats, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro does plan to take security measures at their new expansion, including the installation of 24-hour video surveillance cameras.

Park 51's first public event involved an anti-hate children's photo exhibit.

Yet despite all the heated rhetoric from opponents of Park 51 in the recent past, the cultural and community center opened its doors in lower Manhattan yesterday with an official ribbon cutting ceremony that faced no protests or public controversy:

There was no sign of protest at the Park51 community center last night. It opened its doors to the public in lower Manhattan Wednesday, without the opposition that had surrounded the project for a year.

The center was crowded for most of the evening — with visitors who said they came to see the new photography exhibition and others who were interested in the place itself. Brooklyn’s Jean Stevens said she’s not surprised the event went off without a hitch. “It seems like there’s not much of huge response to this reception or to the mosque anymore, and so I wonder whether if people have forgotten it now that its not such a hot topic.”

Joyce Oliver, who works at a bank nearby, dismissed any thoughts of protesting the location of Park 51, noting that its attendees are no more controversial than anyone else in the area: “They come, they pray, nothing has happened, so I don’t see what the issue should be. It’s historical building so let it be use.”

The opening event for the center was a photo “exhibit of Danny Goldfield’s NYChildren project, which aims to photograph a child from every country in the world living in New York City.” Goldfield “started his photography project in 2003 after meeting Rana Sodhi, a Sikh whose brother was murdered in a hate crime four days after 9/11. During their chance meeting at an Arizona gas station, Goldfield was inspired by Sodhi’s description of his efforts to reach out to his neighbors, taking proactive steps toward eliminating people’s prejudices and fears.”