[griffmorpho]

So many folks are worried about "pissing off the Muslims". They wring their hands trying to figure out "why the Muslims hate us". "What about the 'Arab street'?"

A waste of time. As the most riot-prone religionists on the face of this planet, Muslims, or at least a fairly large percentage of them, have and always will find a reason to be pissed off, no matter what the non-Muslims do or don't do.

If it's not headscarf bans or Danish cartoons, they just consult the Koran --- which is chock full of calls to kill, abuse, & oppress the infidels. (Don't even bother mentioning the Bible or other religious texts. The Koran makes even the worst aspects of the Old Testament look like a love sonnet by comparison.)

To quote the British novelist & historian H.G. Wells: "[Mohammad] seems to have been a man compounded of very considerable vanity, greed, cunning, self-deception, and quite sincere religious passion. He dictated a book of injunctions and expositions, the Koran, which he declared was communicated to him from God. Regarded as literature or philosophy the Koran is certainly unworthy of its alleged Divine authorship."

[dr_who_2]

"What about the 'Arab street'?" A waste of time.

Agreed. But what do I care whether muslim women choose to wear headscarves or not? Do Christians have any more right to threaten muslims who question the divinity of Jesus Christ? There is no thin line, it ought to be quite obvious a dividing line unless you're deliberately trying to cloud the issue. If your average muslim engages in child abuse or cannabalism or anything that conflicts with criminal law or the bill of rights, then there is an obvious problem. Quite a few immigrants, including muslims have come to places like Britain because they're trying to escape just that. I've known plenty of muslims who couldn't care a bit whether I embrace their religion and aren't thinking of funneling dirty bomb material into the country, regardless of what the more hysterical posters here claim. But political battles over extreme cases are going to happen whether any particular immigrant/minority group is involved or not.