When you strip away all of the politics (I'm as scared of fundamentalism as anyone), you have a bunch of people with hurt feelings (and, interspersed among them, a very small number of complete lunatics, who we can ignore). There are ways to smooth things over without compromising our principles.
I'm not sure it's wise to completely ignore such lunatics - they can be rather dangerous. While we certainly shouldn't give in and do whatever they say, we do need to keep our eyes open.