Here's an interesting front in the battle over where sharia will be imposed -- Russia. Moscow has cancelled its gay pride parade because Islamists threatened physical violence against the marchers. Article here. I know people have a variety of opinions and feelings about gay people, and how public or private they ought to be. But no matter where we stand on the issue, our arguments should be just that -- arguments. Physical threats should be treated like the ignorant, backward-minded blackmail that they are.

Of note is the fact that the person making the threat is not an extremist who does day work for Al-Qaeda, but rather a mainstream cleric.

Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin warned that Russia's Muslims would stage violent protests if the march went ahead. "If they come out on to the streets anyway they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that - Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike ... [The protests] might be even more intense than protests abroad against those controversial cartoons."

The cleric said the Koran taught that homosexuals should be killed because their lifestyle spells the extinction of the human race and said that gays had no human rights.