islam is 'peace' of course. There are some liberal, to some extent, muslims little doubt but how entitled are they rationally to claim that this is the islam of Muhammad, as presented in the quran and the hadith? You try to sell here the idea that liberal Christianity has the same amount of justification for its stance as these relatively liberal muslims (a minority, even in the West) which is patently false. I'm afraid the postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of texts cannot help you here, being not tenable, the basics of religions are not the bazar from where one choose whatever one wants while claiming full compatibility with Rationality, especially when extensive change is involved. There can exist however different degree of compatibility with Rationality and at this level all those honest intellectually would agree that a liberal Christian has much more justification for his stance than the muslims you talk about.
I've dealt too many times with this kind of 'arguments' from the part of the so called 'progressive liberals' (curiously I always thought i'm a liberal leaning toward the Left and not the fascist neo-con from the minds of these people) to not become amazed of how strong has this cultural relativist myth penetrated the masses. If you think that there is not a legitimate argument against islam you are completely wrong, there is one and anyone capable to understand will easily understand. Finally I'm afraid Pat Condell is absolutely right about these so called 'western progressives'...
Laughing at the new Inquisition
That's utter tripe. It's like saying that Christians who are in favour of equal rights for gays and women aren't entitled to rationally claim that this is the Christianity of Jesus, as presented in the old and new testaments.
If someone wants to make a postmodernist / cultural relativist interpretation of Islam, that's as legitimate an interpretation as someone who takes all of the texts absolutely literally. It's no different than a Christian taking a postmodernist / culturally relativist interpretation of the Bible and asserting that their religion is pro-freedom and anti-slavery. That's directly contradicted by other parts of the Bible, but it's fine to just ignore all of that shit and reinterpret other parts which agree with him. No matter how much some other Christian disagrees with him and rants on about how the master/slave relationship is mandated by God, both of them are making legitimate interpretations of Christianity.
That sort of thing is more common with Christianity than Islam, but this is because the cultures that Christianity is present in happen to be more liberal and progressive, despite centuries worth of attempts by Christianity to hold that back. There's nothing inherent in either of the religions which mandate that adherents not just ignore the crap that they find distasteful or inconvenient.