Thanks for posting this discussion. I tend to agree with many (maybe most) of your points, but I disagree with most of your conclusions. I used to say that people are people, but that I prefer Muslims who are bad Muslims, because good Muslims are intolerant. Now I refuse to enter into conversations about who is a real Muslim or a good Muslim and who is a fake Muslim or a bad Muslim. If a Muslim man tells his wife and his daughter that they can show their faces and their hair or not, as they like, and if he embraces his gay son and loves him, I won't tell him that he is not really Muslim. I don't like it if anyone says that I am not really a Christian because I don't follow the calls of St. Paul or of Moses to put certain people to death. Rabbinical Judaism has been very successful at getting around the worst of Leviticus, and we don't call these people fake Jews. So, instead of saying that tolerant Muslims aren't really Muslims, I say that the world needs tolerant Muslims to make their voices heard, to tear down the excuses raised for the intolerant Muslims. I don't say that the world needs to be rid of Islam. I hope that you will modify your statements. However, I'm glad that you don't pretend that there is no problem with Islam. And I will keep checking out your website.

Thanks for posting the program. Michael you won the debate.
About my burning the Koran was because the valuable one I burned was in Arabic and the bible I edited was in English. I do not know Arabic.
I have since pulled pages out of an English version of the Koran and burned those. I have a DVD of my reading the violent passages and burning those pages out of the Koran.
And what was the art of burning the Koran? Because artists do and say things to imporve social justice that politicians and religious leaders don't dare out of convention, of being conventional thinkers, safe in their positions.
Artists are on the high wire of existence, and Theo VanGogh is a good example. He is now dead, and maybe I will be tomorrow. C'la Vie, but at least I lived a life of my own self be true. Never a puppet.

will you start talking about sex on here again?
don't get me wrong, i find you very smart and i'd love to have you over for a dinner party with close friends to discuss politics. however, on lucasblog.com I want to hear about things that'll make me horny.

Of course liberals don't mind cutting out pieces of the Bible.

And you should have asked them what they think of flag-burning in the United States.

Somehow, they are more willing in defending the Koran than they are the Bible or the America flag.

Mr. Lucas-

Excellent interview..........

The problem with the apparent debate topic . . . whether Islam is a religion of peace . . . is that there's no resolving the question because at the heart of the controversy is a semantic question about the meaning of the word "peace."

A practicing homo like me who believes that there is a God, but that we should refer to her as She, because He wants a sex change operation, as well as total atheists who think that the concept of God is as ludicrous as that of the Tooth Fairy, (peace be upon her)think that peace involves the absence of violence, the benefits of civilization (such as a kick-ass espresso machine) and a free exchange of good ideas we agree with.

But to a Muslim, the definition of peace is that future condition to be acheived when the entire population of the world has either taken on Islam and its laws as its own or, at the very least, made itself totally and utterly submissive to those who practice Islam, with no intent or attempt to defend itself against the various intolerant aspects of Islam, including those among the Hadith that call for gays to be killed because they are gay.

Show me one book of specifically gay philosophy that all gays consider holy, and which, if they do not believe in it, says they can not possibly be gay, and that also has a set of laws beside it in a pink triangle equivalent to the Hadith calling for Muslims to be killed because they are Muslim.

There is no such book.

But the Koran and Hadith really and truly do call for gays to be repressed and killed and if you haven't heard what's been going on in Nigeria lately than you need to tune in and speak up for the rights of the gay people plagued by the Muslims in that country.

There's really nothing to discuss here. Islam fucking sucks.

The Nazis burned books......

Mr. Lucas,

I support you and agree with what you have sad. I like the fact that you are expressing concern about this particular problem. I really do thing it is a problem.If a have the chance to meet you some day I would have so much to say. Good luck!

Rocco

jon,

True, and if they had burned "Mein Kampf" in '30s, Germany might of not been carpet bombed by the Allies.

-Michael Lucas

Michael,i stopped argueing with people about "religios issues" long ago.discussion over the dinner table ,with reasonable people,opens us to different viewpoints.that's very healthy.my experience has shown me that arguments about who is write,or wrong,accomplishes nothing.my concern is more for your safety.there are very radical elements out their,and you are a public figure.i am not suggesting you shouldn't excersise your"freedom of speech",people have died for that right.i am sure some of your closest friends feel the same way about this . take care. Dale Pierce,Syracuse