On a field, sable, the letter A, gules

I was just Googling Reza Aslan, my new hero and author of No god but God, and I came across this interview with Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch and author of books with such cheery titles as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. In case that didn't clue you in, the interview was conducted by Front Page Magazine, David Horowitz's neoconservative magazine and home to Ann Coulter's columns.

There were a number of disturbing things in the article, but this one just has me baffled. It's actually a quote from the interviewer (who seems unaware that the point of an interview is to let the interviewEE speak?):

Modernity and democracy cannot prevail in any society where women do not have individual rights, equality and the right of sexual self-determination. If a woman wants to be promiscuous it simply doesn’t matter what you or I think about it. You can say it is immoral and wrong but the bottom line is that, if a free society is to prevail, it is none of our business and the state or religious authorities etc. cannot interfere to punish the woman. If they do, we cannot have true democracy and modernity in a society.

In many of my conversations with Muslims, we begin a discussion where they say that Islam is compatible with democracy and freedom, but when I begin to touch on this area and refuse to stop talking about it, the individuals with whom I speak always end up getting very angry and appear as though they are on the edge of violence, insisting that this is not the “Islamic way.”

Well then, it means our definitions and notions of what a free society is are very different, now doesn’t it?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the right of sexual self-determination; the U.S. is a much better and freer place since sodomy laws have been struck down. But I don't quite understand how, exactly, democracy is made impossible by failure to acknowledge women's right to sexual self-determination. Decent education, financial independence, and the ability to cast a vote without the interference of her husband, sure. But how exactly does "true democracy and modernity" rest on sexual self-determination? Couldn't you just as easily argue that "true democracy and modernity" rest on people having complete self-determination in recreational drug use? Why is sexual freedom self-evidently necessary to democracy when other kinds of freedoms are not?

And, what's more, is this guy unaware that fornication laws are still on the books in about 10 states? I believe that there are even more states in which adultery is illegal. Does that mean that less than 80% of the United States is a democracy?

I am so sick of the unthinking assertion that the U.S. stands for "freedom" and everyone else is anti-freedom, simply by defining the things we allow as essential freedoms.