It is most unfair that the people of Switzerland have been characterised as racist and/or Islamophobic following their vote to ban any further erection of minarets in their country.

My Swiss friends tell me that the decision (notwithstanding the regretable remarks made by a few of their more bigoted and ignorant politicians) has nothing to do with any animus towards Islam. Rather, it is a result of the deeply conservative views that many of the Swiss hold on the subject of architecture.