When you talk about religion, you are talking about generation after generation after generation of belief systems, traditions, cultural practices, family practices, lifestyle routines that have been imbedded in people through centuries of teachings. You often don't see it in the west as explicitly but try traveling to somewhere in the Middle East and telling them that what they base their whole entire lives around is wrong. Whether you like it or not, whether you understand it or not, whether you agree with it or not, it just is not that simple.
Exactly. We are trying to align with a culture that is based on things the UK explicitly doesn't agree with (misogyny, homophobia, animal cruelty) and so far we have tried to do that by being understanding. When the reality is there is absolutely nothing wrong with us standing up for the long hard-fought values and laws we have in the UK, we published the Magna Carta in 1215 which formed the basis of our democracy and equality values (i.e. the King had to be answerable to law) and I happen to believe that our evolution has headed in the right way ever since and we are a (not perfect) free and fair society on the whole.
e.g. Germany recently enhanced their child marriage laws because children from Muslim countries were being married off. So what that that is OK in Pakistan, we have come to the conclusion over time that it is not OK for children to be married because we understand the controlling and exploiting forces around this and so should be able to enforce this on everyone who lives in our society without fear of racism accusations.
It is not simple, I agree, however clearly and rationally enforcing our values and laws despite religious beliefs is an obvious place to start to make these changes.