While the world lauds the late Montazeri for his opposition to the mullahcracy, it is useful to remember that he held what are mainstream -- not extremist -- Shi'ite views about unbelievers. "Montazeri's Limited Tolerance of Non-Muslims," by Jamsheed K. Choksy in (of all places) the [1] Huffington Post, December 21:

[...] Following long-standing Shiite attitudes toward non-Muslims, Iran's revolutionary leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once declared that "the following eleven are unclean: first urine, second feces, third semen, fourth corpses, fifth blood, sixth dogs, seventh pigs, eighth non-Muslims, ninth wine, tenth beer, and eleventh the sweat of a camel which has consumed impure food." Khomeini had gone on to add, "every aspect of a non-Muslim is unclean."

Yes Montazeri, once cast aside by the revolutionary elites, did become a fierce critic of the theocratic regime. As the years went by, he also was more open to extending additional rights beyond those of medieval-like dhimmi or protected status to non-Muslims in Iran. However, he did not sway from the orthodox Shiite perception that non-Muslims are impure. He merely suggested that any non-Muslim could make himself or herself "pure through chaste, Muslim-like, behavior."

Montazeri's comments on members of other faiths may seem more tolerant than ones by Khomeini or other ayatollahs like Ahmad Jannati who compared non-Muslims to "animals roaming the Earth and engaging in corruption." Yet the religious minorities in Iran see little theological difference and only a marginal pragmatism among the various Shiite views. Montazeri's opinion was characterized by one Iranian Christian clergyman as "rubbing salt into our wounds."...