Is it? How about asking them to not ring the bells so often and see how far you'll get with "compromise". Despite the fact that a federal court has rules that silence between 22:00 and 06:00 must be respected by the church bells, most communities refuse to listen to any complaints from residents on the subject. Oh but minarets - that's a serious issue right?

Let's not forget that these minarets would be silent.

Protection of the interests of minorities is the hallmark of so called free societies. I don't think anyone is trying to break any rules. Who would have thought that building a minaret onto a building they own, using their own money would break any rules. In fact - it didn't break any rules, but people decided to deny them the ability to do it anyway, and call for the ones which had already been built to be torn down (who will pay for that?)

Let me pose this question - does this "minority" pay less taxes than the majority? I was under the impression that the 8% of muslims in this country (quite a sizeable minority and they only have 4 mosques in the whole country) pay their taxes and participate in society, just like the majority does.

So what moral right do we have to impose our judgements on what they want to do their buildings?

Let's be honest here - is it because the Taliban won't let men shave or women wear makeup. Is that all we really understand of Islam? Is it because people spread complete rubbish about Islamic customs which have no basis in fact?

Or is it just because we fear what we don't understand, but we can't even admit that?

I also don't think it is right to try to justify the argument by comparing Switzerland to third-world non-democracies - surely we should be a little more enlightened and set a good example - especially since we represent ourselves all over the world as champions of human rights (domestic policies notwithstanding).