What do we get out of doing that, though? Islam has a history of destroying idols, sequestering women, calcifying culture and otherwise fitting poorly into this modern world... but so does Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism and despite all that, the freedoms and liberties that make the modern world modern arose out of those religions such that we can now point at "islam" as the root cause of all evil because we're so liberated and modern.

But radicals have to be radicalized. Anwar al-Awlaki used to go on PBS to explain Islam and provide national perspective prior to being persecuted and subverted by the FBI. Within five years he was calling for jihad from Yemen.

France is full of muslims. Nearly all of them have no interest in shooting up Kosher markets. The more of them get blamed for shooting up kosher markets, the more of them start to align with the kill the infidel wing.

There's a whole lot of Islam. And yeah - I wouldn't want to open a gay club in Afghanistan, either.

But I know muslims from Afghanistan that don't give the first fuck about yours, my, or anyone else's sexual orientation. And every time we say "your religion is to blame" we're driving a wedge between us and the people we're reliant on to make Islam less of of a violent, reactionary influence.