To my mind "separationism" is a fine and useful word and I would not hesitate to describe myself with that term. Robert Spencer, however, has not to my knowledge advocated any programs himself (except to call for the monitoring of mosques and quite lately to call Muslim immigration restriction as proposed by others "eminently sensible") to deal with the permanent problem of Islam beyond some ideas about Muslim "screening." Hugh Fitzgerald and I (when I was working at JW and now at NER), have both advocated more concrete ideas as to how to deal with the existential threat Islam poses to civilization. See my latest article here.

I don't know why Spencer referred to John as an atheist either. Here is what I wrote last November about the same article to which he linked:

In the original article that sparked debate between [Derb and]  Wesley Smith, John states that yes, he does believe in God and (this is important) he believes there to be a connection between himself and God. Everything else, however, is open to doubt.

I think this is a very intellectually honest position to take, especially since according to John, he has not had a religious experience of any kind. There's knowing of the intellectual variety and then there's knowing that only comes from religious experience. Without that second kind of knowledge, it seems to me, John has come to a very sound place.

I also think separationism is a sound place with regards to Islam so long as it is coupled with a strong counter-propaganda effort of the kind advocated by Hugh Fitzgerald to reduce to lure of Islam among our population and to convince Muslims that the source of their many failures (spiritual, intellectual, civilizational, social, and political), can all be traced to Islam itself. Only in this way can the grip of Islam be loosened over the minds of men. I agree wholeheartedly with Spencer that playing "Let's Pretend" with Islam, as has been advocated by many pundits who think we shouldn't alienate moderates with the truth about the matter, is a ridiculous and unrealistic strategy.