When several South Park residents made anti-Islamic speeches at a March hearing about a proposed Islamic center, township Supervisor George A. Smith tried to silence them.

"We are dealing with hard issues," Mr. Smith said during the hearing, which was supposed to focus on zoning issues, not religious or cultural differences.

"I was not elected to impose my personal beliefs on the community. This is not productive to this kind of discussion," he said.

But the anti-Islamic rhetoric was there and it had an impact on the West Penn Cultural Center, a small Turkish nonprofit organization which operates a private school in Monroeville,

The group withdrew its application Tuesday to turn the old, vacant Broughton Elementary School into an Islamic center where members could worship and preserve their Turkish culture.

"It was not an easy decision for us," said Yuksel Korkmaz, director of the cultural center.

In a news release, the group cited comments made at last Thursday's hearing as the reason it was moving on.

"[People] came forward and made comments that deeply hurt members of the cultural center," the release said.

"As a group that promotes peace and dialogue, we have never encountered such negativity in our long history here.

"WPCC is looking for a peaceful and lovely environment to perform its activities. ... It is clear to us that South Park is not the best place for our organization."

The group, which has been in Pittsburgh for six years, said it was looking for a place to keep its traditions alive and to engage in interfaith dialogue. It bought the graffiti-covered, boarded up school for $100,000 and planned to make about $300,000 in improvements, their attorney, Dwight Ferguson, repeatedly told South Park officials and residents.

Bekir Duz, a board member of the cultural center, said Tuesday that the group would sell the old school and look for another property.

"We are sincerely disappointed that the neighbors at Broughton school could not open their hearts to us. If they would just get to know us, if they would have accepted our invitations to get together and talk, we believe they would have understood us better.

"We are still very hopeful they will come to visit us someday. We would be happy to know them better."

At the hearing, some people expressed fear about Islamic terrorist cells.

John Morden, of South Park, who circulated a petition opposing the center, said he agreed that Islam in Turkey is not as violent as in other parts of the world, but that he thought people who believe in interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims were being fooled.

"The true teachings of Islam are anti-Christian," said Mr. Morden, who tried to explain his opposition at the hearing, but was silenced by Mr. Smith.

"I do not want an anti-Christian group in this school, even though they have watered it down," Mr. Morden said outside the meeting.

In a letter to the editor that appeared in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rob Belan, of South Park, demanded that the cultural group openly denounce radical Islam and terrorism if it hopes to be accepted in South Park.

Supporters of the cultural center explain that they are Turks, not Arabs, and that their country, while 98 percent Islamic, is a secular republic which has been a friend and ally of the United States and NATO for 50 years.

James Kelly, of Bethel Park, a real estate broker who has worked with the group, said members of West Penn Cultural Center were "nice people, loyal, ethical and hardworking." He said one member of the group has a high-level U.S. security clearance.

"They are trying to make a way for their culture," he said.

The group follows the teachings of M. Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish religious scholar whose movement emphasizes education and interfaith dialogue.

But in South Park, some people did not feel good about it.

"I don't know what it means, but it will be in my back yard," said Bruce Broglie, who said his chief concerns had to do with traffic on narrow Schang Road, above the school.

The old school is on 4.8 acres in an R-3 zone, which permits a church as a conditional use. For months, the cultural center has been submitting plans for topography, the building and parking. The group hired a landscape architect who has designed buffers and lighting plans and reconfigured the parking patterns and traffic patterns and presented it all to the community in a Power-Point presentation.

But as last Thursday's hearing went on, the demands increased. Broughton volunteer fire Chief Dennis McDonough questioned whether the building could be protected, whether there was an ample water supply from nearby hydrants and whether firetrucks could get to the entire building if the upper parking lots were full.

Neighbors demanded that most traffic enter through a lower parking lot instead of off Schang Road.

Mr. Ferguson couldn't hide his frustration. "We are concerned about holding this building to a standard that no one building is held," he said.

That's not true, Mr. Smith said this week. "It does not matter what use would be planned for that building, the issues would be the same as far as zoning," he said.