ED WEST: The Left’s blind spot with Islam: opposing bigotry does not mean liking a religion.

The issue of Christian persecution has been ignored because the Left feels uncomfortable discussing Muslim-on-Christian violence, and Muslim bigotry generally. Muslims, as (generally) non-European minorities in the West, excite their need to protect the vulnerable. Yet outside of the West, the men of Islam are far from vulnerable or weak – quite the opposite.

And the problem for the Left is that once you look into religious freedom around the world it becomes very hard to sustain the idea that Islam is a tolerant faith, as they would like to believe.