The Flip Side of "Islamophobia"

Bigotry against Muslims in general, rather than hostility to terrorists and fanatics in particular, is a bit of an issue in the rightosphere (to borrow Ali Eteraz’s terminology), and occasionally even in my own comments section. It’s a problem I should probably mention more than I do.
The inverse is easily as big a problem. Bogus claims of “Islamophobia” are trotted out just as often by the bigots’ evil twins. Johann Hari sums up that crowd in four sentences:

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Do you believe a religious leader who fights to save Section 28 and says gay people spread disease is a fulminating bigot? Do you believe a “leading cleric” who advocates stoning gay people to death should be denounced? Do you believe sharia law — which requires gay people to be lashed or stoned — is always and forever unacceptable? Then, according to an energetic and aggressive group of white straight boys who surreally consider themselves to be on the left, you are an “Islamophobe” and “objectively pro-Nazi.”

Mary Madigan at Exit Zero has plenty more examples, and traces the roots of this sort of thinking, ironically, to both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph McCarthy.

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