It was about the term Islamophobia – a conflation, in my mind, of legitimate and important secular criticism of Islam with racist, xenophobic bigotry. I think there’s a difference between these two phenomena – and in the wake of the Boston bombings, I can’t think of a better time to re-examine the issue. Here is the email exchange between Sam and Glenn that prompted this long piece of self-defense by Sam. My favorite point from Sam:
[E]ven if Noam Chomsky were right about everything, the Islamic doctrines related to martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, apostasy, the rights of women and homosexuals, etc. would still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society.
How can one seriously deny that? All religions contain elements of this kind of fanaticism. But Islam’s fanatical side – from the Taliban to the Tsarnaevs – is more murderous than most.
The Dish 