About Islam

Lucas ignited a fire of controversy in March 2008 while speaking at Stanford University. A group of Muslim students protested and boycotted his appearance and sent letters to the student body asking for the same. Lucas claimed that the Koran is the modern day “Mein Kampf” and that its philosophy inspires Muslims to kill gays. This created heavy debate that was profiled by many mainstream media outlets. The Stanford Daily published five articles after his appearance. Professors supported Lucas and The New Republic magazine covered this story. In his speech Lucas asked the students: “Why would I be pro-Islam?

“As a Jew, they want to kill me and erase the country, Israel, where my people live from the maps of the world. As a gay man, they debate whether to stone me or throw me from a skyscraper. As a pornographer, they probably would want to publicly mutilate me and would have a difficulty deciding how, as my crime is not pointedly identified in the Koran. As an atheist, the same: death. And I have no interest in being killed at the hands of those religious retrogrades.

“In short, I have a problem with people separating terrorists from the world that breeds them, from the world that they were derived from, which is the world of Islam.”

The reactions to these contentions were extreme. There was great support for his fight for tolerance against tyrannical cruelty of others. Others argued that his intense views were racist against Arabs. Michael responded:

“Speaking of racism in relation to religion, not to a race, is a big disservice to language and to intelligence. I never in my life said or wrote a bad word about Arabs; go read any of my articles. My criticism was always addressed toward the religion and ideology of Islam. In fact, some of my role models are Arabs who I have tremendous admiration for. I’m talking about individuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan, who have both secularized, confronted and condemned Islam.”