Many of our freedoms have been taken away by a liberal Supreme Court and a majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, and hardly any brave citizen dares to resist the new government policies any more.

Loosely translated it means something like this…
“Oh yes, it is our freedom to limit the freedom of all those pesky gay-loving, reproductive choice supporting, pesky libarulhs! And in the near future they will even try to poison us by lacing the water-supply with The Gay®. They also try to brainwash our children with filthy ideals like liberty, human rights, and freedom of and from religion! Let us pray that the all-loving Jesus will show up soon to shoot all those lesbian, pinko-communist, secularist sympathizers with his Gatling Gun of Righteousness! Jesus is Love!”

*Sigh* I hope the Rapture will take place soon so the sane people can have our planet back!

But state after state ruled that their refusal to teach positively about homosexuality was the equivalent of hate speech, and they had to teach it or be fired. Tens of thousands of Christian teachers either quit or were fired, and there are hardly any evangelical teachers in public schools any more.

Bad ?!

All businesses that have government contracts at the national, state, or local level now have to provide documentation of equal benefits for same sex couples. This was needed to overcome “systemic discrimination” against them and followed on a national level the pattern of policies already in place in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Bad ?!

And how come people still don’t know the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia ?

The Boy Scouts no longer exist as an organization. They chose to disband rather than be forced to obey the Supreme Court decision that they would have to hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys.

Seriously, people that still think that shouldn’t invent time travel to go into the future… they should go back to the Middle Ages, where they belong !

For the most part, I would agree with your comment, but for that I do not believe this really has something to do with xenophobia. It is not so much the fact that many European Muslims are different that sparks fear, or, in most cases, doubt concerning certain aspects of Islam, but the way in which these differences become visible.

Differences by itself are not necessarily harmful or dangerous, unless it is these differences that cause (part of) the tensions putting strain on social-cultural relations within the EU, and the world.

There are, in my opinion, valid critical blows to be made towards Islam. Of course people can defend themselves by arguing that “it is not their version of Islam” (so often uttered in so many different forms, hence the quotation marks), but that does not settle the argument. Jews, Christians, Hindus, Scientologists, Objectivists (a cult, not a philosophy) — you name it, and one for one, they all had to answer to the call of reasonable criticism, too. Sometimes this criticism is voiced in a calm, reasoned way, and other times by sarcasm and ridicule.

Differences are clearly present, such as the difference between the European separation of church and state, and Islam’s call for a theocratic state; the loyalty to a constitution and all the individual freedoms it brings, or loyalty to fellow Muslims in the form of the Umah. Differences like these run deep and addressing these differences does not make one a xenophobe.

(Note: fixed the broken links in the article)

But I disagree on your explanation of the word. I think islamophobia is part of the entire xenophobia-thing. Fear of the other. Though a phobia an sich is an irrational fear, I don’t think xenophobia commonly is. Islamophobia would then be the fear of the other, when thinking of muslims and the Islam in general. Not your fear of their politics, their religion or whatever, but your fear of them being different, and you possibly not being able to understand or communicate.

And there’ nothing wrong with being afraid of somebody or something different than what you’re used to. Fear is an instinctive reflex, the manner in which you react to your emotions are the degree of your civilisation. And initiative inspired by fear seldomly leads to civilised action.