>>17948515 (OP)
>completely normal parts of society in our ancestors' time
>keeping LGBT out of the public sphere
This isn't reflected in Muslim history nor in the history of pre-Christian Europe. In actuality, very few people in those times cared much at all about anything LGBT. Hell the notion of LGBT is really a recent thing anyway, and is ahistorical. For Muslims, they weren't always so intolerant of gays, and homoerotic literature used to be somewhat common for Medieval to early Modern Muslims. We have male skeletons with feminine clothes and weaponry in some excavations in Europe. Nobody gave a second thought to pederasty (boy love) in pagan Europe.
>>17948518
>Islam also treats non believers pretty badly, while christians aren't even half as bad.
It's pretty important to separate Muslims from the religion of Islam in general. I notice how you compare Islam (thing) to Christians (people). A lot of what Muslims did weren't exactly because of religious reasons, though religion does limit a person to a degree. I say this because if we can apply this logic to Muslims and Islam then likewise Christianity suffers the same criticism if we look to history.
>>17948876
>Muslims were never exceptionally cruel or intolerant.
Statements like this and the opposite are never true. We have instances of Medieval Muslims forcing Jews to wear arm bands to distinguish them Nazi Germany style. The Jews of Medieval Palestine were ethnically cleansed over time due to Muslim actions. Plus there were times where Muslims denied the concept of dhimmi (Almohads for example).
Medieval Christians were often times just as bad if not worse, though, but also had times where they facilitated and worked with Jews just like some Muslim polities did. Medieval Muslims were more often than not more tolerant of nonbelievers than Medieval Christians on average, likely due to the theology of the dhimmi concept and jizya tax, but we shouldn't pretend that it was a fantasy land of tolerance.
