Every religion has extremists, but you can't deny that Islam is in a state of crisis right now. A significant minority supports radical Salafist violence, and by "significant minority" you're talking about tens of millions, if not a few hundred million, people.

That radical recourse to violence is helping to exacerbate political disputes and has made most of the Middle East a miserable place right now. You can hardly name a country with a significant Muslim population that isn't having problems with Muslim violence:

Iraq - bombings, sectarian violence
Syria - civil war with jihadi characteristics
Libya - jihadi violence
Tunisia - jihadi violence
Nigeria - Boko Haram insurgency
Somalia - Al Shabaab insurgency
Yemen - jihadi insurgency, sectarian violence
Egypt - generalized chaos and violence
Lebanon - low-level sectarian violence, fears of return to civil war
Pakistan - sectarian violence, Taliban insurgency
Afghanistan - Taliban insurgency
Russia - low-level insurgency in Caucasus by "Islamic Caliphate"
Indonesia - Salafist movements in Aceh and elsewhere, low-level terrorism
Thailand - Islamic insurgency in the south
Burma - Muslim-Buddhist violence

Even the countries that have traditionally been considered calm are starting to have problems and tensions over Islamization of society, such as Turkey, Jordan and Morocco. In fact, it seems that only the most repressive societies - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Bahrain - are able to maintain order.

That certainly doesn't mean that the hundreds of millions of non-violent Muslims should be subjected to attacks by people solely because of their religion, but there is a quantitative and qualitative difference between Islam today and other religions. You can't, with a straight face, honestly say "there are extremist Christians as much as there are extremist Muslims", at least not when we're talking about acts of violence. If all Muslim violence were perpetrated by a group as small as the Westboro Baptist Church, we wouldn't be talking about Islamic terrorism.

By saying "a tiny fringe" you imply that 90% or more of Muslims are peaceful and tolerant. The latest polling shows otherwise. Yes, the majority is peaceful, but only a small minority is "tolerant" by Western standards, and the minority that supports violence is fairly high. When over 1 in 4 Egyptians believe that suicide bombings of civilians can be justified, and even 10-15% of people in places like Turkey and Jordan believe that, we are talking about significant numbers. The numbers are thankfully down from 2005, when 30-40% globally supported suicide bombings, but they are still significant numbers.

Finally, most Christians are more tolerant than most Muslims. The latest Pew Survey, which I have already linked, again shows that most Muslims do not have Christian or Jewish or Buddhist friends: http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-interfaith-relations.aspx. Moreover, overwhelming majorities in many countries (above 70% in most Middle Eastern nations) favor applying the death penalty to anyone who leaves Islam: http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia.aspx.

I am not willing to play the political correctness games that everyone else seems to be playing here. While the original post does tar every Muslim with the same brush, your response was just as absurd.