No it’s OK to use free speec to oppose US policy, but maybe it is not appropriate to attack free speech itself. Same applies to separation of Church and State. The difference between the US and many Muslim countries however, is that if you publicly oppose the basic tenets of society you won’t be locked up by the govt. or killed by extrajudicial mobs.
So, free speech is okay, so long as you don’t use it to talk about certain topics?
Doesn’t that kinda make it “not free?”
Sorry, Miller, but apparently I do not know how to break up quotes correctly. You will have to figure out which are my comments and which are yours.
I never said they should be deported, now did I? I said that at some point if your values cannot coexist with the values of your host country, you adapt to your new country or go back (voluntarily) to your country of origin. Did I even use the word “deport”?
No, you never said they should be deported. But you’re certainly wishing for that, apparently. If they’re a threat to your country, then they need to be removed, don’t they?
It is legal to express your opinion, but the US has the right to decide who they will let immigrate. I for one, do not see that it is advisable to allow people that oppose secular rule, free speech, and free exercise of religion to become citizens.
My source for the information about France is given clearly in my OP, no. 1 in this thread. I will not repeat it all other than to say that it is from the scholarly and respected publication “Historia Thématique” Jan-February 2007. The article is in French. The authors are Daniel Lefeuvre, a professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Paris and Michel Renard, co-author of “L’Histoire de l’islam et des musulmans en France”. If you will Google Daniel Lefeuvre you will see that he is a widely-published historian. There is an English-language review of one of his books here in thew American Historical Review. So I would say this guy does not strike me as a foaming-at-the-mouth soap-box racist.
The other author of the article is Michel Renard, and the Google produces a number of people with that name, but as you can read above he is the co-author of a history of Islam and Muslims in France. And I believe he is probably the Michel Renard that the Google search identifies as former “directeur” of the former magazine “Islam de France”. He almost sounds as if he might be a Muslim himself, but I would not venture an opinion without more information. At any rate, if you read French, see his article about the Mohammed cartoons here The French title means "My truth (or my interpretation of) the Mohammed Cartoons. I hope you read French because it is quite interesting.
Neither of these authors strike me as French Hitlers, frankly.
So why is this stuff coming out of France? On the other hand, why do Americans on SDMB see my comments as nothing but pure bigotry?
Maybe it has to do with the situations in different countries. If you consult the statistics at this site you will see that France is a country with an enormous and rapidly growing 10% Muslim minority. In the USA, Mulims represent only 1.5%. So you can talk about how you never had locker room problems with Muslims and the “impure” based on your own experience in the USA. (And then don’t forget to join the chorus of those booing me for using anecdotal evidence 
.)
With 10% of the population of France, Muslims are beginning to feel their power. They are members of a religion that does not recognize the separation of church and sate. Frenchmen, on the other hand, fought a 30-year war with the Catholic Church until 1905 to finally achieve the secularization that is a cornerstone of the French Republic.
Muslims have an entirely different world view, and in France they are starting to feel their strength. As the Koran states:
“Prophet, make war on the hypocrites and the unbelievers and deal rigourously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate.” Surah 9, verse 73.
“Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them. Know that God is with the righteous.” Surah 9, verse 123.
If you would like to check out the accuracy of these quotes from Surah (Chapter) 9 of the Koran, you are wlcome to do so here
As Sam Harris observes in “The End of Faith”: “Religious Muslims cannot help but disdain a culture that, to the degree that it is secular, is a culture of infidels. . . .”
To French Muslims, the secular French Republic is ground to be conquered for Allah, not a country in which they want to assimilate.
Your second question was “please be so kind as to show what Sharia law would have to say about the “offended Muslim’s” stance you describe” (regarding locker rooms and changing with the “impure” uncircumcised.)
This question is not relevant because neither I nor the authors of this article claimed that the “offense” at having to change with the “impure” was Sharia-based. It is a simple fact that Muslims in France are making that demand. Ask them what they base it on.
Well, you work that out and get back to me.
And if they don’t want to adapt, and they don’t want to go back to their country of origin. Then what?
If you are going to decide what I really mean to say for me, Monty, maybe you don’t need to even come on this site to read my postings. Maybe you can read my thoughts by telepathy. 
Tell their neighbors they are secretly jews.
You have some balls, stand up to them, and stop being afraid of being called a bigot and a racist, and tell them that they have to adapt to the law here just like anyone else. And that when our laws and their Koran and Hadiths are in conflict, our laws win 100% of the time. Period.
Here is an interesting question: Why is the female British military person being held by the Iranians wearing a hijab in the pictures? Did she choose to wear it? Has she become a Muslim?
When Queen Elizabeth went to Saudi Arabia she dressed in a black dress that covered all of her arms and legs, and covered her head. But when Muslims come here, do they dress like us? No. Why?
Because their belief is NOT that one should adapt to the country. Their belief is that the whole world must be brought to Islam.
I should also add that obeying the law whether you like it or not is part of what I eman by “adapt”. Is that clearer?
So Canadian homosexuals who move to the U.S. who want to adopt children should just shut up and obey the laws prohibiting it, right?
Your analogy is flawed. They should obey the laws but they need not shut up. But then again, I would never move to the US because of the level of homophobia in so many parts of it. I WOULD STAY THE FUCK OUT.
I never said Muslims could not speak out, in Canada or the US. And if they someday convert a majority to Islam, I guess my partner and I can look forward to the treatment afforded to gays in Muslim countries. But I believe enough in democracy to let them speak out, even if it costs me my life.
Call it one of my western values 
Here’s another example to back up what Valteron is saying:
Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims
Would anyone like to defend this? And by the way, have you noticed that teachers haven’t stopped teaching evolution out of ‘fear’ of offending Christians? I wonder if that might not be because offended Christians don’t tend to murder the people who offended them?
But I notice no reticence for teaching facts that contradict what is taught in church…
Wouldn’t such reactions be, well… hate speech? Would teachers refrain from teaching about sexual equality out of fear that some students might express homophobia or misogyny in the classroom? Or would those students simply be punished for it?
Oh the irony that question/statement presents to me !
Several years ago, I recall an almost universal condemnation on this board of Christians who bring bibles into a Muslim country. It can result in capital punishment by mainstream Muslim dominated legal jurisdictions that are totally unrelated to Taliban type extremism. By the way, I know an openly gay Canadian couple who have chosen to live together in Texas of all places, and they love it. They enjoy engaging their fundamentalist neighbours but decided to keep a couple of schnauzers instead of children. Much less hassle.
Thanks, I’ve got balls aplenty, and no great fear of being called a racist. Besides, you’re the one getting twisted up like a pretzel over cafeteria menus, not me. I don’t feel the burning need to defend our Western highschool lunchroom traditions from the influence of Creeping Islam.
Who gives a fuck?
Because most Western women don’t have an ethical objection to wearing concealing garments, but some Islamic women do have an ethical objection to wearing revealing garments.
Again, this is seriously something you object to? Islamic women don’t show enough skin?
Which really stands them in stark contrast to, say, United States foreign policy, doesn’t it?
Again, where exactly is this message that Muslims can move to the West and just ignore any laws they please come from? Who is saying that this is okay? Where are all these bleeding heart knee jerks that are falling over themselves to prevent wife-beaters and violent street gangs from being prosecuted?
Are you kidding?
In the cafeteria here at work we have some form of pork product almost every day. It is located in a tray between all the other foods. It is prepared in the same kitchen by Muslim chefs. Our workforce is over 80% Muslim (all members of a vocal union, btw). Has there been an objection to this? Well, nothing more than asking for assurances that the meat is prepared separately. So, I don’t know why any school in the West would be asked to ban ham even if the majority of the students were Muslims. If they can make concessions here in a Muslim country, it seems odd that they’d object to it there in a western country. So, why do they object?
The article appears to be crap. It can’t seem to decide whether the report is claiming that this is happening so as not to offend Muslims or so that the Muslims won’t offend the Jews. Got a link to the actual report itself?
Nothing to defend until I know what’s up. Find the report, and I’ll happily comment on it.
I still haven’t seen any evidence that they did this out of “fear of offending Muslims”. It sounds like they did it to avoid the Muslims making anti-semitic remarks.
Nor should there be. A church can teach fiction all day long, to anyone who wants to hear it. Public schools, on the other hand, should limit the teaching of fiction to the English class.
Anti-semitic remarks are certainly hate speech. Teach the Holocaust, and deal with the students if they makes such remarks.
Do you honestly believe that equality of sexual orientations is taught in all schools?
In other words, no, this is not backing up what Valteron is saying.
So, Valteron, your answer to my response would be “No, you may not.” Thanks for clearing that up.
Also, there’s no telepathy involved. You’ve made it quite clear you consider Muslims to be a threat to your values. What, then, to do with those who are in your land? The only possible choices are: (1) deport, (2) have them convert, (3) execute, or (4) concentration camps. Which, then, do you advocate?
DanBlather,
That’s pretty much the stance of the US government, too, isn’t it? I seem to recall that one of the questions for naturalization is if one supports the US’s form of government and its constitution. Now, just deciding that because someone’s Muslim and thus can’t enter the US isn’t supporting the constitution.
It would never occur to me to defend such a stupid action.
OTOH, I find the “report” curious in the persistent use of “some” with very little support for the claim–even the anecdotes are pretty wishy washy. Is this actually a serious blight on UK education? Or did some reporter in need of a story sift through a three thousand page report and find two unattested anecdotes that he turned into a “story”? (If it is actually happeneing, even at the level of one or two incidents, it ought ot be stopped, of course.)
As to teachers laying low on evolution, there are any number of anecdotes that that it is a common occurrence in the bible belt and in a couple of areas dominated by Fundmentalist Christians in the Great Plains and Midwest. However, no one will go on record identifying the suppressive practice so that they can keep their jobs and no governmental agency has the authority to do an actual survey to determine how prevalent such suppression is. My guess would be that it is about as prevalent (or a bit more), proportionally, as the skipping of Crusade or Holocaust chapters in the UK.
It would be really interesting to see what actual lessons were suppressed and how frequently. I am not sure why the Holocaust would be a taboo topic for Muslim kids (Ahmadinejad, notwithstanding), and the Crusades were taught as examples of bad decisions badly executed in U.S. schools when I was in high school 42 years ago.