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It is simply bizarre that progressives who have no problem with calling out the leaders of the American religious right for the fascist wackos they are are so full of respect and even admiration for people in the Middle East who make the likes of Robertson and Falwell look like free-loving hippies. The "moderates" who took over from the "radical" Taliban in Afghanistan have so much respect for other religions that they believe anyone who converts from Islam to one of those other religions should be put to death. Our friends in Saudi Arabia do not allow women the right to drive, vote or do much of anything else without the permission of their husbands. If a woman is raped in moderate Pakistan, she will be, in accordance with Islamic law, stoned for adultery unless she can find four men, unrelated to herself, to testify that she was raped. Homosexual acts earn the death penalty in any Moslem country, and legalized abortion isn't even an issue. Nonetheless, so many progressives, caught up in a dualism that is the mirror image of the flag-and-Bible-waving jingoism of the right, simply can't get over this ridiculous notion that the Islamic fundamentalists who got so upset over those Danish cartoons simply want peace, justice and mutual respect. Face it, the world is uglier and more complicated than that.
