A commenter writes,

A survey of Muslims in Britain (Patrick Basham, NRO Online, Aug 2006) revealed that attitudes many would consider radical are in fact widely held in the British Muslim community. For example,

"When asked if free speech should be protected, even if it offends religious groups, 62 percent of British Muslims say No, it should not."

The Islamic Revolution is seeking conquest and subjugation of the world, and offering no respect for the lives of those who disagree with them. The "Religion of Peace" line is ludicrous propaganda.

I am certainly troubled by the finding that 62% of British Muslims conclude that free speech should not be protected if it offends religious groups. (I haven't yet gotten a copy of the survey, but I'll assume for now that it is sound.)

At the same time, opposition to protection for offensive religious speech — at least such religious speech in public places (I don't know whether the British Muslim survey expressly asked about this) — is unfortunately not "radical" in the sense of being far from the mainstream. When asked from 2000 to 2006 whether "People should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to religious groups," 42% to 53% of American respondents — overwhelmingly non-Muslims — said no. In the surveys, 27% to 38% said they "Strongly disagree" with the pro-religiously-offensive-speech position. Only 22% to 31% strongly agreed (though fortunately the mild agreers consistently exceeded the mild disagreers).

Now it may well be that British Muslims would endorse broader restrictions than Americans would. And 62% is higher than 42% to 53%. Nonetheless, I think it's a mistake to assume that the 62% number itself illustrates "radical" attitudes on the part of British Muslims. Unfortunately, it represents attitudes that are shared by many non-Muslims in America.

I'd also be curious what the view about protection for religious speech among British non-Muslims would be. British law generally offers less protection for offensive speech than American law does, and it's possible that Britons generally oppose protection for religiously offensive speech more than Americans would (though the opposite is also possible, perhaps because of greater secularism among non-Muslim Britons than among Americans). If anyone can point to data on general British sentiment to free speech as opposed to British Muslim sentiment, I'd love to see it.

UPDATE: I just got a copy of the survey of British muslims, and it reports not only that 62% of British Muslims generally disagreed with "Free speech even if it offends religious groups" (31% agreed), but 78% supported the position "Punish the people who published the cartoons" (15% disagreed), and 68% supported the position "British people who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted" (23% disagreed). So the support for some specific restrictions on religiously offensive speech among British Muslims may be even higher — but it may well be that support for some specific restrictions on religiously offensive speech among Americans (or Britons generally) may be higher, too.