How Moderate Are "Moderate" Muslims?
Speaker at a Moderate Muslim Peace Conference points out that Islam itself demands death penalty for gays and apostates, and that this is not an extreme view.

He asks: How many of you believe the punishment (death, stoning) in the Quran "is the best punishment ever possible for humankind and that is what we should apply in the world?"

Watch all the hands raise. Watch them raise again when they affirm that they are not extremists.

This is why Islam -- the ideology of Islam -- is a danger to the maintenance of free societies and civil liberties (and life itself).

Reformation runs contrary to Islam. The Quran, for example, is said to be the word of Allah and unquestionable. And Muslims are slaughtered by other Muslims for questioning it or for leaving Islam.

But Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year's Day, calling for a reformation of Islam and an end to Islam's commands that Muslims convert or kill the infidel. Via Roger L. Simon and Raymond Ibrahim (who translated):

Corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants--that is 7 billion--so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema--Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I'm talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move... because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost--and it is being lost by our own hands.

I truly appreciate the guy's saying this -- and his courage in doing so -- but I predict that the man's tenure on this planet will not be long.

And that's the awful thing about Islam. It is the one major religion in modern times that demands primitive savagery from its followers -- many of whom actually follow its call.