In truth, most Muslims don't want to kill, and often, they are ruled with an iron hand by those who ARE willing to kill.

This is certainly true of Americans. :) I find this article by Hitchens falling into the well plowed groove of Robert Spencer's opinions. How much of our culture are we willing to cede to the idea of protecting the sensibilities of a religous group? How many of our own rights and protections are we willing to sacrifice to ensure that members of another religious group feel "welcome." I am with Hitch, the demand for respect carries with it an implicit "or else" threat. But there's a further problem, which is brought up by Robert Spencer and others, that misguided liberal mollycoddling (out of fear) is exactly what muslims in the west don't need. The fact that two separate legal systems in Germany, one for Germans and the others for muslims wishing to impose shiara on their own populace was found to be unconscionable. Many muslims come to the west because they WANT freedom, they want the ability to express themselves free from the rancor of the mullahs. They want western liberal human rights.

Yet the idea that Islam is extreme on its face and at its core cannot be easily denied. The muslims who want western values and have emigrated here to enjoy them have made the choice to interpret the more bellicose verses of the Koran as metaphors. To that extent they are mirroring the liberal Christians of the 18th Century.

So, while we preserve our freedom of expression and our right to criticize Islam, we must take care to nurture the idea that there are moderate muslims, and that they live in peace and harmony in accordance with the laws of the United States. I lived in a muslim neighborhood for many years, and I've never felt for one moment any threat overt or implicit from any of them.