I'm happy to offend Muslims (but the ones I know would not be offended) by pointing out oppressive regimes built around extreme Islam are terrible places. You are simply wrong when you claim I am trying otherwise. They are terrible places, and the religious rules they have are sickening.

But many people think that every Muslim adheres to these beliefs and that is wrong as well. Many graduate students in the sciences are from Iran and Moslem, and they hate their oppressive laws. People in Iran are fighting against this (see https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/jmk8z3/the-iranian-women-fighting-state-censorship-one-selfie-at-a-time for example). I don't think all of Christianity is bad because the Bible says to kill gays, or because the Phelps Church is terrible. But I also think that the terrible things happening in the Middle East are more about oppression and poverty, and almost any religion would have served the same purpose for being a tool of terror and oppression by those people.