Boston Globe:

    We do Muslims no favors by excusing attitudes or practices that ought always to be deemed inexcusable. In Australia's Victoria state, the Herald Sun reported recently, police have been issued a "religious diversity handbook" that advises them "to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits."


    Sikhs, for example, "should not be disturbed" when reading their holy scriptures, a practice that normally takes 50 hours. Photographing Aborigines is discouraged, since it might raise fears of "sorcery and spiritual mischief." And Muslim wife-beaters should be treated with kid gloves, in deference to Islamic norms. "In incidents such as domestic violence," the handbook instructs, "police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life, and habits of Muslims."


    Could anything more perfectly capture the moral bankruptcy of multicultural relativism? The Koran may tolerate wife-beating (Sura 4:34: "As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to bed apart and beat them"), but why on earth should Australia?


    "All Muslim husbands are not wife-beaters," remarks Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islam, "and it is condescending and irresponsible . . . to give those who are a free pass, instead of denouncing the practice unequivocally and calling upon Muslim men to heed the better angels of their nature." ....[H]e says, the West's unwillingness to "confront the elements of Islam that jihad terrorists use to justify violence, for fear of offending moderate Muslims," ends up undercutting the ability of those very moderates to demand reform from within.


    The war against radical Islam is above all a war of values -- the values of liberty, equality, and human dignity against the values of jihad. The jihadis don't hesitate to proclaim their values. We must not be shy about defending ours.