What does reason have to do with religion?

There are two points he is especially keen to make. One is that Christians in many Muslim countries do not have the same religious freedom that is enjoyed by most Muslims in the West. The other is that too many Islamic clerics seem to sanction or at least tolerate violence in the name of religion. This was central to his Regensburg lecture in which, as he later said, "I wished to explain that not religion and violence, but religion and reason go together."

The value of that point in the present state of the world can hardly be overstated. It is sad that it should have been put in such an inept way that the only answers came in the form of burnt effigies, grisly threats—and a great deal of sincerely outraged protest.

Yes, Christians in many Muslim countries do not have the same religious freedom that is enjoyed by most Muslims in the West, and many Islamic clerics tolerate violence in the name of religion, but what in the world does reason have to do with religion?