A Texas court has thrown out a lawsuit brought by a Dallas-area mosque that aimed to stop Christian evangelists from preaching and distributing religious materials on public property nearby.
The legal action was filed in October 2025 by East Plano Islamic Center against Testimonies of God, an evangelism ministry led by Landon Thurman, along with Heritage Grace Community Church, Jason Osborne, and multiple unnamed defendants.
The complaint sought to block the group from speaking or distributing “Evangelical pamphlets, letters, fliers or other documents offensive to the Islamic faith.”
The mosque initiated the lawsuit after alleging that the ministry and others had disrupted its services beginning last September, claiming they “made it a weekly practice to stand on the sidewalks and lawns outside [EPIC] mosque with loudspeakers and bullhorns, intentionally disrupting Plaintiff’s prayer services with loud evangelical messaging about Christianity and the ‘teachings of Jesus.’”
Attorneys representing the mosque further argued that the defendants “set up a tent, brought external speakers, and came with evangelical pamphlets and signs that they attempted to hand to passers-by, all of whom were attempting to enter the mosque for prayer services.”
In response, legal counsel for Thurman and his ministry described the lawsuit as a “shocking and illegal demand” and “an unthinkable attack on our country’s core values of free speech and freedom of religion.”
Their filing added, “Under the injunction that [EPIC] demands, a local church would be prohibited from even handing out free Bibles if doing so were “offensive to the Islamic faith,””
The defendants told the court that their activities took place roughly 500 feet from the mosque, with a strip mall separating the two locations, and that they maintained sound levels to avoid disturbing those inside. Court testimony also included an acknowledgment from an EPIC representative that the preaching could not be heard within the mosque itself.
On March 23, the court dismissed the case under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, a law designed to protect free speech from lawsuits intended to silence it, allowing the evangelists to continue their outreach.
The ruling also enables the defendants to pursue reimbursement for legal costs and attorneys’ fees, though the mosque may still seek to appeal the decision.
Meanwhile, the East Plano Islamic Center has previously drawn attention for its proposed large-scale development in North Texas, originally called “EPIC City” and later renamed “The Meadow,” which envisions a 400-acre community including housing, a mosque, educational facilities, and other amenities tailored to Muslim residents.
