Mosques around the country facing opposition

Two weeks later, the New York Times and the Associated Press are catching up with The Upshot's reporting on the growing opposition to mosques around the country. Mosques in small communities in Tennessee, California and Wisconsin — far from the emotionally loaded Ground Zero site — are facing protests from community members who contend that the Muslim houses of worship serve as training grounds for jihadists.

Both stories highlight a recent two-year study by Duke University and the University of North Carolina, which found that mosques and other community organizations like Muslim bookstores help prevent radicalization among American Muslims.

Meanwhile, American University professor and former U.K. ambassador to Pakistan Akbar Ahmed told "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart that America's Founding Fathers held deep respect for Islam, and that modern opponents are rewriting history by attacking Islam as a religion of evil.

"Everywhere there's a mosque, there's a tension now," Ahmed told The Upshot two weeks ago, citing his year of field research visiting 100 mosques around the country.

That tension doesn't seem likely to let up any time soon. On Friday, about a dozen protesters confronted worshipers at a mosque in Bridgeport, Conn., yelling at them with a bullhorn: "Murderers!" and "Jesus hates Muslims."