North Texas is a religiously diverse place. Not only are there numerous Protestant megachurches, there also are Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and more. Many, like myself, consider the religious diversity one of the draws of the area.
My daughter attends public school with students from each of the various faith traditions in the area. That gives us an opportunity to talk about what is unique about our Baptist faith, how we are all the image of God and how we all can work together for the common good.
Of course, not everyone in Texas believes religious pluralism is a strength.
Architectural rendering of part of the planned EPIC City.
For the last several months, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has leveraged the full power of his office against a group of Muslims who wish to build a mixed-use community in the suburbs of Dallas. As I began digging into how this odd fight began, I found the genesis of the governor’s case against this group is an extremist online conspiracy theorist who calls Reno, Nev., home.
When the person sitting in the highest office in the state (or the country) perpetuates lies for political gain, what are we to do?
In the case of EPIC City — affiliated with East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) — the victims are fighting back.
Timeline of a conspiracy theory
On Feb. 24, Abbott retweeted a post from a known racist and conspiracy theorist, Amy Mekelburg, whose handle on X is Amy Mek (more on her below). Mekelburg since has deleted her original post but, it can be found in online digital archives. (This was actually Mekelburg’s second tweet about EPIC City — the first was on Valentine’s Day.)
Anyone with a shred of common sense should be able to read Mekelburg’s screed and recognize her vitriolic accusations about EPIC City are not grounded in reality.
But the governor of Texas is evidently not someone with common sense enough to distinguish between real news and conspiracies. The governor’s retweet of Mekelburg’s post was viewed 3.6 million times, liked 60,000 times and retweeted 15,000 times.
On Feb. 27, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-McKinney, got in on the conspiracy action and sent a letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton requesting a formal investigation into the planned development. Leach then retweeted the letter online.
On March 24, Abbott announced via a tweet that “a dozen” state agencies and the attorney general were investigating EPIC City — which is only in the design phase at this point — and that legislators were “considering laws to restrict it.” The governor also insinuated the planned development was somehow the work of “foreign adversaries” seeking to buy land in Texas.
The next day, Attorney General Paxton issued a press release saying his office had issued a “civil investigative demand” to the real estate developer working on the site, Community Capital Partners.
Since then, Paxton has issued additional press releases declaring his office has expanded its investigation and requested documents from city officials in Plano, Richardson, Wylie and Josephine as well as from Plano Independent School District.
Meanwhile, Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers to open a criminal investigation into the East Plano Islamic Center. Under his direction, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has ordered the developers to cease construction of EPIC City, even though not a shovel of dirt has been turned there.
Abbott also directed the Texas Funeral Service Commission to send a cease-and-desist letter to the mosque, accusing it of operating as a funeral home without a license. Not stopping there, under the governor’s direction the Texas Workforce Commission has opened an investigation into “potential discrimination in violation of the Texas Fair Housing Act.” And the Texas State Securities Board is investigating “potential financial harm to Texans.”
Sharia law
Abbott also tweeted allegations that Epic City is attempting to enact Sharia law and to circumvent state and federal laws.
For decades, evangelicals have warned about Muslims seeking to enforce Sharia law in America even as they seek to enforce a forced Christianity. Sharia law is the sacred law of Islam, providing a moral and religious code of life for Muslims.
In 2011, Center for American Progress released a downloadable briefing about the wrong-headed conspiracies being spread about Sharia law in the U.S. Others have compared conservatives’ obsession with Sharia law to their fixation on Critical Race Theory.
John Cornyn
Not to be outdone, Sen. John Cornyn (whom Paxton has announced he will challenge in next year’s midterm elections) demanded the U.S. Justice Department open an investigation into the planned development on the basis of religious discrimination. When the Department announced it would open the investigation, Cornyn went on Fox News and took to X to repeat the allegations that Epic City is attempting to enact Sharia law, writing in-part: “Religious discrimination and Sharia law have no home in Texas.”
Given that these politicians have wielded the full power of the state and U.S. governments against this faith-based development, one would assume this project poses an imminent threat to all Texans.
As best I can tell, that doesn’t seem to be true.
What’s planned
EPIC City is a planned community that has not even purchased land yet. Anyone can visit the EPIC City website to see for themselves the marketing materials and application to become an early investor in the community, which had hoped to purchase land near Josephine, Texas, which is located about 25 miles east of Plano and 16 miles northeast of Rockwall.
While there is no stipulation that someone applying to be an investor must be Muslim, given there is an application process its feasible a non-Muslim could be rejected for not being part of the faith. Even so, while the planned community includes a proposed private school, in the promotional materials for the planned development, one of the key draws is the nearby public schools.
The planned community includes a private school as well as a mosque, retail space on the main road, parks, soccer and cricket fields, single-family homes, townhomes, apartments, senior living facilities and a community center. If developers of this community truly were attempting to hide away and build a government in opposition to state laws, the transparency of their plans, their highlighting of the nearby public schools as a draw, the planned retail space and other options connecting with the larger community doesn’t make sense.
East Plano Islamic Center
Regarding the accusation of the mosque serving as a funeral home, this, too, seems to be made up. Just as with Christian churches or Jewish synagogues, East Plano Islamic Center partners with a licensed local funeral home which prepares the bodies of the deceased. The only thing that happens at EPIC are religious services. All of this, as was pointed out to the local NPR affiliate KERA, is on EPIC’s website.
I read through EPIC City’s investor materials and watched a video prepared for investors to address some of these many allegations against the group. Again, everything seems very transparent. This is a proposed development. The mosque and development company are looking for early investors to raise the money to purchase the land so that they can build this community. There are income requirements to become one of these early investors (net worth of $1 million and up or annual income that demonstrates that investing in this will not pose a financial hardship), so the developers are not preying on the financially illiterate.
Personally, even if I were Muslim, I wouldn’t invest in a project like this that would take so long to come to fruition. I also wouldn’t invest in the cryptocurrency being pushed by our current president.
The bigger story seems to be the fact that the Texas governor and other elected officials treat known online conspiracy peddlers as truth-bearers in order to deny religious liberty to minority groups.
Meet Amy Mekelburg, alt-right conspiracy theorist
So who is Amy Mekelburg, whose original tweet started this whole thing? It turns out she’s a known online conspiracy theorist who prolifically produces hate-filled memes and tirades against immigrants and Muslims.
The “foundation” behind which she blogs filmed and released a 45-minute hate-filled video with ex-Muslim Taleb Al Abdulmohsen days before he rammed his car into a crowded Christmas market in Magdenburg, Germany, in December 2024. She also has ripped videos from journalists and added her own manipulative commentary to it, which then inspired violent riots.
In 2018, investigative journalist Luke O’Brien unmasked Amy Mek as Amy Jane Mekelburg. Once thought to be a bot because of the volume of hate she posts online, Mekelburg is, in fact, a real person.
According to O’Brien and subsequent reporting, we know Mekelburg, 52, was raised in a Jewish family in East Brunswick, N.J., attended East Brunswick High School (class of 1991) where she was a star athlete on the school’s state championship soccer team. Her father still owns a wholesale business there.
After attending University of Rhode Island (class of 1996) she began dating future-husband Salvatore “Sal” Siino. The pair moved to New York’s Upper East Side where Mekelburg’s life seemed to go completely off the rails.
She had gotten to know a handsome aspiring actor and personal trainer, Paul Cortez, who, in November 2005 was accused of violently killing his on-again/off-again girlfriend (she was nearly decapitated). A bloody fingerprint on the wall led to Cortez’s arrest. In March 2007 he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Mekelburg and Siino created a nonprofit dedicated to overturning Cortez’s conviction. When Cortez was transferred to the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, N.Y., Mekelburg moved to nearby Fishkill while Siino maintained their $1.2 million residence in Greenwich Village.
She claims to have graduated from New York University with degrees in social work and speech and interpersonal communication and to have been a licensed therapist, but in his reporting, O’Brien confirmed with officials at the New York State Office of Mental Health that they don’t know her and she isn’t licensed as a psychotherapist or a social worker.
Since 2013, her full-time job seems to be posting hate-filled memes and right-wing extremist conspiracy theories to X.
O’Brien’s article on her prompted her husband’s then-employer, WWE, to fire him. The fallout also affected her brother’s restaurant — a popular craft beer bar and restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Yet Mekelburg continues to post day-after-day, hour-after-hour — sometimes multiple times per hour. And the focus of her vitriol is Islam and Muslims.
Recent voter records indicate she and her husband have relocated to Reno, where her husband also serves on the board of an organization called The Nutrient Institute.
Texas governor loves conspiracies
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during the NRA ILA Leadership Forum May 18, 2024, in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Why are Gov. Abbott, Rep. Leach, Attorney General Paxton and Sen. Cornyn parroting this woman’s conspiracies to go after a religious group?
Their targeting of this Muslim group and their accusations of the group’s planned implantation of Sharia law drip with irony.
Leach is one of the elected officials pushing SB-10 through the Texas Legislature, a bill that would require every public school classroom in Texas to post a state-approved (King James’ Version) of the Ten Commandments. Leach and the rest of this lot are proud Christian extremists intent on imposing their version of Christianity on the masses.
Beyond the irony is the very real threat posed by elected officials repeating and amplifying conspiracy theories from alt-right extremists.
This isn’t Abbott’s first time to amplify internet hoaxes. When pushing for the school voucher bill earlier this year, he cited the conspiracy theory that “kids go to school dressed up as cats with litter boxes in their classrooms.”
This prompted Rep. Stan Gerdes, R-Smithville, to introduce the ludicrous House Bill known as the FURRIES Act (Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education). Thankfully, some representatives like James Talarico, D-Austin, still call out these kinds of conspiracy theories and the danger posed when elected officials perpetuate them.
East Plano Islamic Center and Community Capital Partners are fighting the state-sponsored attacks. It will be interesting to see whether any of these elected officials are called upon to explain their peddling of online conspiracy theories.
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as program director at Faith Commons. She is a spiritual director and a recent master of divinity degree graduate from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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