Geert Wilders and Islam

Some parts of the right-wing establishment are gushing over Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who wants to ban the Qur'an. Robert Spencer is chief among these people. In fact, he's one of the leaders in defending Wilders. Spencer says that Wilders is a brave soul to call out Islamic teachings that advocate violence against non-Muslims. He insists that freedom loving people should defend Wilders' right to free speech. Fair enough.

But where does Spencer draw the line with someone like Wilders? Wilders said the following at a speech he made in my neck of the woods, South Florida, just a few days ago:

We should also stop pretending that Islam is a religion, sure, it has religious symbols, but it's not a religion. It is a totaltarian ideology and the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam...

I think we have to have a contract, in any Western Country, a contract, a binding contract signed by everybody there, of Assimiluation. We need a Pledge of Allegiance in all Western countries for people to adhere to our values as well...

We have to stop the building of new Mosques. We have to close the Mosques where incitement of violence is taking place...

Aside from this, Wilders has also said "I want the fascist Koran banned."

Now, for all the right-wingers who want to defend Wilders' right to free speech, I ask whether they will speak out against his demands that Muslims throw their holy book in the trash, or that they speak out against his demands to limit Western Muslims from their right to practice their religion peacefully or build religious institutions.

Wilders, if he had his way, would essentially make it severely difficult to practice my faith. I would become a criminal if I owned a copy of the Qur'an. I would be unable to build a new mosque in America (do these people know how over crowded many of our mosques are here in the U.S.?). I would have to swear loyalty to a set of values I may not 100% agree with (whose values anyway? Liberal values or conservative? Democratic or Republican?). Theoretically, Wilders' application of such a law would force conservatives to swear loyalty to things they hate, like being pro-choice, pro-gay, etc. And vice versa for liberals if conservatives had their way.

Sure, I would defend Wilders' right to speak freely as much as he wants. But the things he is calling for are completely against the values we Westerners cherish. Spencer consistently denounces the laws in classical Muslim literature that call for the marginalization of non-Muslims. But this is exactly what Wilders is arguing for, except for it to apply to Muslims in the West.

Noticably, Spencer doesn't say a word about these issues. He simply ignores them to applaud Wilders' hate speech against Islam and Muslims, just like many on the right. At least some on the right who are against Muslim extremism have the decency to know the difference between legitimate criticism of Islam and neo-Nazis like Wilders who call for the banning of the Qur'an and laws to make it difficult to practice Islam. Spencer is obviously not that bright or decent.