In case anyone is unfamiliar, a major thing to understand about The Satanic Verses is that it isn't even some kind of anti-Islam screed, just a historical fantasy novel that uses the history and lore of Islam as a framing device, much like several of Dan Brown's novels do with Christianity (though Rushdie is apparently a much better writer).

Anyway, we've had this sort of thing in America, but we've probably largely forgotten the history (Lady Chatterly's Lover, Fanny Hill, and so on) and haven't really paid attention to the small-scale occurrences that are still ongoing (e.g. public school libraries are often pressured to remove "controversial" books).