wow. Hundred of years after the crusades and thousands of years after Jesus Christ, and the sprinkling of water on a muslim in the name of Jesus is still major news. And the penalties for freedom of conscience are the same - losing your head.
The Crusades were self-defense. How did they start? In the 7th and 8th centuries, Muslim hordes conquered the Christian lands of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, North Africa — places that housed some of the earliest Churchs, the earliest Church fathers (including Augustine who is from what is now Libya/Algeria/Tunisia). Christians were taxed specific taxes for not being Muslims and were treated as third-class citizens, their Children and wives forfeit. After 300 years, the caliphs started destroying the Holy Churches in Israel and killing pilgrims, only THEN did we Christians retaliate. We did not go into the crusades to forcibly converts