The world becomes more and more a global village, in which we can't merely move away physically from every one who might have a perspective radically different from our own. Both immigration and the flow of information through the Internet make such an idea obsolete. For better or worse, in the concrete world or the virtual one, we are forced to be side-by-side with a wide variety of "neighbors." If my neighbor happens to be someone who supports the imposition of Sharia law, I picture the conversation like this--

Neighbor: "Your yard sign offends me. I would like you to remove it." 

Me: "That concerns me much. We are neighbors and will need to interact on a nearly daily basis. I am eager to not offend you, if I can help it at all. Please explain your concerns to me. I may indeed be willing to take down my sign if it is something that needlessly gets in the way of our possible friendship."

Neighbor: "If you don't remove it, I will kill you."

Me: "Well, that changes everything. I cannot take it down now without becoming your slave. I'm not willing to do that. I (dare I say 'we') cannot live in a world where we kill each other merely for disagreeing."

Such is the difficulty we face in this conversation we now find ourselves part of. We did not ask for it--but this is indeed the conversation we are in.