While it is tempting for many liberals to poo poo the U.S. and want to go overseas ("Europe" seems to work for a lot of people), it's always helpful to realize that reality has a way of marching on, oblivious to what
we think.
This is an introduction to a developing news story that I just noticed in Slate . It seems that a Dutch filmmaker who had made a film about domestic abuse in Muslim households, which included a muslim woman in semi-transparent clothing, was brutally (and very symbolically) murdered by a Muslim man. Anti-Muslim violence, including blowing up a school, ensued. The Dutch authorities, meanwhile, are announcing arrests of Muslims suspected of being involved with terrorism.
While this is a new story, it's part of a not so new narrative. Pym Fortun's assassination fit into the ongoing struggle in Dutch culture between the type of progressive social values that we value and the rather different social values held by Arab and muslim immigrants. It's a story that has been playing out all across Europe as more and more immigrants arrive, and it really is something that we ought to consider when we try to oversimplify the way we look at "morals" "Europe" "Muslims" "fundamentalists" "traditional cultures" and what's really at stake for all of us as a world, not just a nation.
This puts U.S. progressives in an odd position, because while we promote values that are really quite at odds with fundamentalist Islam, our impulse is also one of religious tolerance and of pulling for racial and religious minorities. For a "native" Dutch person (and there's probably a problem if someone can't be seen as a "native" even if they've been born there), the decision as a "progressive" is probably a bit more clear--even if it comes with a measure of xenophobia and religious intolerance.
Draw what conclusions you will from this sad state of events...but it's sometimes good to stick your head out and see what everyone else is wrestling with--because wrestling they are.
My final thought is that although we may find certain aspects of Christian fundamentalism unsavory, I really think that our main complaint is that those folks, who are still a minority, are trying to impose their views on the rest of us as if they were in charge. Were they a small sect off in the woods somewhere, most of us wouldn't give them much thought.