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.