I think we ought to be more reasoned in this thread.

It's easy to criticize politicians for being too politically correct, when being so can muddy the waters of reasoned discourse. However, it's precisely generalized comments like Teresa's (and the support that was given to her comment) that may make Brown's decision an intelligent diplomatic move.

1) If a bunch of folks hold a negative stereotype against a minority, then a context-reactive censorship of language is an intelligent diplomatic move.
2) A bunch of folks hold a negative stereotype against a minority (against Muslim folks).
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Therefore, in this context, censorship is an intelligent diplomatic move.

It's the equivalent to calling Catholics, generally speaking, a bunch of war-mongering murderers because the Irish Republican Army is entirely composed of Catholics.

1) It's always wrong to blame someone's held religion for the atrocities which they may commit, unless the 2 are ideationally linked.
2) The Muslim religion, like the Catholic religion, has nothing whatsoever to do with the atrocious acts that may be committed by its proponents.
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Therefore, it's always wrong to blame Islam for the atrocities that Muslims may commit.

... it's counter-productive to make general statements about terrorism that inherently ties a whole religion to a terrorist movement. What possible reason is there to constantly link the two together, except to fuel hatred of an entire religious population and encourage conflict between religious sects (or West v. East)?

1) If a religion is politically and morally benign, then linking it to terrorism only serves to fuel hatred and encourage conflict.
2) Islam is a benign religion which does not fuel any hatred or encourage any kind of conflict in the world (such as between religious sects, or West v. East, for examples).
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Therefore, linking Islam to terrorism only serves to fuel hatred and encourage conflict which wouldn't have surfaced otherwise.

Nothing is lost by severing the general verbal link, while Brown throws a kind diplomatic gesture to a group that all too often feels isolated from the West. This is less a nod to political correctness than it is a move to decency and common sense. Any person that feels enraged for Brown's move probably does so out of thoughtless hatred.

1) Nothing is lost by censorship.
2) Muslims, through no fault of their own, "feel" isolated from the West.
3) Censorship which makes Muslims feel more "at home" in those geographical areas or societies where some non-Muslim values are commonly held -- is just common sense.
4) Making some folks "feel better" -- even at the potential expense of others -- is a proper role of government.
4) Folks who disagree with any of the first 4 premises are likely being either thoughtless and/or full of hate.
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Therefore, it's right to adopt censorship here, so that more Muslims "feel better" in a geographical area or society where some non-Muslim values are commonly held. 

I assume you have an outhouse?

Thanks for your responses- some were very interesting. I wish I had time to respond earlier and completely, but here goes.

May I first say that I will not defend Islam. What I will say, however, it that there are effective ways of dealing with religious people and there are ineffective ways of dealing with them. We can throw stones at beehives because the damn monsters sting babies and ruin picnics. But throwing stones will cause the worst possible situation for both the picnic-goers and the bees.

First, there must be an understanding that there is a fundamental difference between religion and religious texts. If Satanism engulfed 25% of all living people on the globe, and its religious texts advocated cannibalism and eternal warfare, it’s likely that as Satanists integrated into Western societies, their religion would change with them, taking on more Western values to the point that the religion as practiced would bear little, if any, semblance to the literal translation of the original holy texts or their brethren in unreformed and backwards cultures elsewhere in the world.

Likewise, take a look at polls of Muslims in the U.S., U.K. and other areas of Western Europe. The far majority believe that terrorism is unjustified under any circumstances. The far majority support representative democracies and freedom of religion. The far majority are law-abiding citizens, and in the U.S. they are also, on average, more wealthy than the average citizen. While many criticize Islam in general, they fail to recognize that Islam takes on many faces, and that most Western Muslims are more likely to fall on our side than the terrorists. NO religion is static, sticking only to the original literal interpretation of their texts. How many of you would criticize Christianity for references to the four corners of the globe? How many Christians are still preaching a flat Earth? And, in spite of Jesus’ call for peace, how many deaths were directly linked to Christianity *as practiced* at various times in history. That’s why it’s more important to see how religion is practiced than it is to what the original texts say. According to their Book of Order, Presbyterians still believe in predestination, but few would defend that dogma in a U.S. church (Korean Presbyterianism would be a different case, however).

So, what point am I making? In short, some view Islam, as originally written, as an evil, violent faith inimical to Western values. However, Islam as practiced in the West today tends to side with our values- not always, but most of the time. To turn our backs on these people who support freedom and to lump them in with bloodthirsty terrorists only makes them more likely to cut themselves off from our values and embrace the destruction wreaked by radicals in other states. By acknowledging that freedom-loving Muslims in the West will be welcomed by our states and people is the best way to ensure they don’t jump to the other side.

(Edited by Scott Scott Richard Monroe on 7/16, 5:07pm)