[Luis Gonzalez]

Wherever this thread may have begun, I entered the debate at a point where the issue of censoring Islam was starting to take hold.

I do however appreciate the synopsis.

There are a number of individuals on the thread advocating that the practice of Islam not be allowed in the US, and that its status as a religion be somehow removed, and that is clearly wrong ay many levels.

But even if your interpretation of individual rights includes the ability to personally persecute people for exercising their individual, constitutionally protected freedoms, then you are arguing that their way, and thus their religious teachings are correct, and ours are wrong.

The moment we sanction any religion, or set in place the idea that it is our right to define the personal religious beliefs of some by refusing to recognize their religion, we begin emulating their religious intolerance, and we try to enter into the realm of religious fanaticism ourselves.

The moment we do that, we have effectively surrendered the West to their way of life.

[SauronOfMordor]

The moment we sanction any religion, or set in place the idea that it is our right to define the personal religious beliefs of some by refusing to recognize their religion, we begin emulating their religious intolerance, and we try to enter into the realm of religious fanaticism ourselves.

I personally have no problem with people choosing to be Christian, Jewish, Buddhists or Moonies. I don't even have a problem with those who choose to sacrifice small furry critters to the Immortal Cthulhu.

When people belonging to a particular religion start targeting people for death just because they don't belong, that gets my attention. When I observe the situation to be globally widespread, that gets my attention even more

[Geritol]

"The moment we sanction any religion, or set in place the idea that it is our right to define the personal religious beliefs of some by refusing to recognize their religion, we begin emulating their religious intolerance, and we try to enter into the realm of religious fanaticism ourselves."

That is assuming that we do not face the unfortunate position of having to oppose a religion that has dedicated itself to our destruction. In that case, I have no idea what contortions we would have to put the constitution through to survive, or would we just declare that we have a status of war with all countries that are under sharia control and treat all of their citizens in our borders as combatants. That might still leave us with adherents currently filling both our jails and inner cities to deal with in a manner that will not in itself destroy us like you said..

Further, is is similar to the antigun stance that self defense is unsupportable violence just like the violence of the attacker. If the attacker can be identified, whether it is a political system or a religion or specific state or country, we must have the right to self defense. If, and a big if, the enemy is the adherents of a religion (any of them) within our borders, there must be some way to identify them and protect the country.