Members of Congress do not usually turn up at municipal zoning hearings. Zoning is not their job. A site plan for a house of worship is about setbacks, drainage, parking counts and traffic studies — the most local government gets.

On the evening of Tuesday, August 4, 2026, Keith Self went to the McKinney City Council anyway.

He was there to stop a mosque.

What he said

The Islamic Association of McKinney had been trying to build for years. The project — a roughly 32,000-square-foot complex with a prayer hall, classrooms, a gym and community space on about 5.5 acres near Virginia Parkway and Crutcher Crossing — was first denied by the Planning and Zoning Commission in 2024. The association spent the next two years redesigning the buildings and studying traffic and drainage.

By August 2026 it was back before the council with a plan that city staff said met the rules.

Self stood up and told the room what he thought would follow:

"Child marriage, honor killings, don't tell me that can't happen here. There is no state cavalry coming to save you."

He warned against letting "political Islam" into North Texas, and, as the Dallas Observer reported, pointed to the British "grooming gangs" controversy, citing a figure of some 250,000 victims. That number does not come from any official report. It circulates on social media, promoted by figures like Elon Musk.

To CBS News Texas, he put it this way: "The freedom to choose our faith or not does not exist in political Islam. Ask any Muslim what the penalty is for leaving political Islam. It's death."

The next day he posted on X that he had "rose in firm opposition to the proposed McKinney mosque and Islamic center."

None of this was about parking.

What happened next

More than 150 people signed up to speak. Public comment ran more than five and a half hours. Many speakers echoed Self — fears of Sharia law, warnings about "the spread of Islam across Texas," demands that immigrant communities "adapt to our norms." Former McKinney mayor George Fuller was called a traitor for supporting the project. Police had to step in during a confrontation in the room.

Then the council voted.

Seven to zero. Unanimous. Approved.

The council's reasoning was the least dramatic thing said all night: the plan is fully compliant with the city's rules, and a site plan vote is about whether a plan meets the ordinances. That's it. That is what the law requires them to decide, and they decided it.

One council member, Justin Beller, said the quiet part out loud:

"Watching partisan politicians with power to gain use fear and outrage is disappointing. Otherizing people and groups is a cheap way to gain power, and evidence that there are no concrete ideas to serve their constituents. There are enough legitimate concerns in the world without manufacturing new ones."

A seven-member city council in a Republican Texas suburb — Self's own voters, the people who actually have to live next to this thing — heard the congressman out and unanimously told him no.

This is not a one-off

Self did not wander into this. He built it.

In December 2025 he and Chip Roy launched the "Sharia Free America Caucus." By January his own office was advertising 26 members from 17 states. The Council on American-Islamic Relations designated it a hate group, saying its agenda "would effectively ban the practice of the world's second largest religion in the United States."

We've traced where this panic actually comes from. In Little Rock, the "Sharia takeover" turned out to be five houses, two of them lived in by Christians. In Oklahoma, Josh Brecheen warned a town hall about the Ottoman Empire and a man in the audience laughed out loud — then Brecheen put it into legislation. In Texas, Beth Van Duyne's House resolution condemning one imam's tweet ended with a clause about Sharia law.

The North Texas version had a specific trigger: EPIC City, a planned Muslim residential community that drew state investigations and public denunciations from Governor Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Self. The Justice Department closed its investigation into EPIC City without bringing any charges.

In September 2025, a sign announcing that the McKinney mosque was "coming soon" was spray-painted over with large crosses and the words "Jesus Christ." It was investigated as vandalism.

That is the environment a sitting United States congressman chose to walk into and pour fuel on.

Why it matters that it was him

Anyone can show up at public comment. That's the point of public comment. If a constituent wants to stand up and say they're afraid of their new neighbors, the microphone is open.

But Self is not a constituent with three minutes. He is a member of Congress with a subcommittee gavel, a press operation and a following. When he tells a room that approving a building will bring child marriage and honor killings to their town, he is lending the authority of a federal office to a claim he did not support with evidence — about people who live in his district and are, as far as the record shows, doing nothing but building a place to pray.

He is also up for reelection this November, which the Dallas Observer noted in its subhead: dog-whistling about Sharia law "has emerged as a key policy issue" in his campaign.

Councilman Beller called it election year fear-mongering.

The vote was 7–0.

Sources

Dallas Observer, "Sitting congressman encourages anti-Islam hysteria during McKinney mosque vote", August 6, 2026, by Emma Ruby. CBS News Texas, "McKinney City Council greenlights mosque site plan amid both support, derision from community members", August 2026. Photo: Mike Brooks / Dallas Observer (the East Plano Islamic Center).