This is a matter of pride, not just self-preservation. If a lodger strode into your flat and started deriding the furniture; making plans to replace it with their own and speculating about forcing you to cook their meals and wash their pants you would take it as an affront. The behaviour of these clerics is similarly insulting, and our acceptance of it has demeaned us. Asserting the worth of our culture; the barbarity of their ideas and, crucially, our right to speak about them as we wish should be done with an assurance that proves we are not chumps or chickens.
At last the penny has dropped !

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
Thomas Paine
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored !- Aldous Huxley