For those who haven't wasted their lives away on mediaeval and early modern history (...she writes from her Ivory Tower), the Black Legend refers to anti-Spanish/Catholic propaganda created in England and initially encouraged by Elizabeth I in a political move intended to prevent Catholic sympathy from leading to uprisings against the precariously-Protestant monarchy.  With that in mind, apologies for the nitpicking, I'm sorry, but I had to comment on the below paragraph, which contains certain historical inaccuracies definitely influenced by said propaganda.

"Forcefully told to change, Jews were encouraged to do so by being tied to the Inquisitor’s rack, expelled from most European nations...or otherwise offered the choice between conversion and death. During Spain’s transition to state-mandated Christianity, men had to prove they were not Jewish infidels (or Moorish Muslims) by eating pork and pork fat in public."

Jews were absolutely never, ever encouraged to convert through torture by the Inquisition, let alone the fact that the majority of the forcible conversions which did take place in Spain (anachronistic, I know, but easier to use in this case) began shortly after popular uprisings of anti-Jewish sentiment in 1391.  With that in mind, let it be noted that the Catholic monarchs did not ask for papal permission (which was given reluctantly) to institute an Inquisition in their kingdoms until 1474...eighty-three years later.  In addition to this timeline, the fact remains that the image we hold in our Anglo-Saxon-culture-influenced minds of a masked Torquemada torturing hundreds of prisoners to death with glee, simply isn't true. 

Just by looking up "Spanish Inquisition" on Answers.com, one can find a compilation of the research done by Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen on the breakdown of early modern Inquisitorial records - I'll reproduce it here, with my comments in [ ]s.

"Cases in the Spanish Inquisition, 1540–1700 (Excludes the tribunals of Cuenca, Cerdaña, and Palermo)

Judaizers - 4,397 - 9.8%
Moriscos - 10,817 - 23.2%
Protestants - 3,646 - 8.1%
All Others - 25,814 - 57.8%
_______________________
Total - 44,674 - 100.0%

Total Relaxed [released to the secular arm for execution] - 1,604 - 3.5%

Adapted from Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen, "Forty-four Thousand Cases of the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank," in Henningsen and Tedeschi in association with Amiel (eds.), The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe. Studies on Sources and Methods. Northern Illinois University Press, Illinois 1986, p. 116. Included in the category "All Others" are propositions and blasphemy (27.1%), bigamy and solicitation (8.4%), acts against the Inquisition (7.5%), superstition (7.9%), and various (6.8%). The "Total Relaxed" involves only those sentenced to death in person [i.e. not those relaxed in absentia or posthumously, whose bones were dug up and burned]."  As you can see here, not only were "Judaizers" the second smallest group of those tried, but the numbers of executions are much, much smaller than I think most of us would imagine.  To put it in perspective: in one hundred and sixty years, the recorded deaths are less than half the current American deaths in Iraq (four years) and almost half the number of people lost on 9/11 (one day).

While I'm not saying that it was right or ideal in ANY WAY, the Jews and those conversos who maintained their faith in secret prior to 1492 were given many opportunities to leave Spain.  The choice was conversion or leave; the choice was not convert or die.  Not only that, but I'm unclear on how expulsion from "most European nations" would constitute encouragement to convert; the entire point of the Expulsion Decree of 1492 was that Isabel and Fernando felt that the proximity of Jews to converso communities was preventing "New Christians" from fully practicing their new faith.  They wanted the Jews to leave, they didn't want to make them convert falsely or torture them just for the fun of it.

In the last bit of analysis of this paragraph, and out of professional curiosity, could you possibly share what source you used for the information of eating pork as a public test of Jewishness/Muslimness?  I have never heard this before and I am certainly interested!  However, again, Jews were not "infidels" (a particularly emotional/biased choice of word, I must say) nor were Muslims (funny, considering it's a word we associate primarily with Islam's view of non-Muslims).  Let one thing be perfectly clear: the Inquisition had no jurisdiction over unbaptised Jews or Muslims.  If you were YET unbaptised - and therefore the definition of an infidel or nonbeliever - the Inquisition had no truck with you.  The point is that the Inquisition was instituted to deal with heresies and heterodoxies within the Church itself...and as we saw above, it certainly had its fair share even without the "contribution" from forcibly-converted Jews and Muslims.  Additionally, the use of "Moorish Muslims" is not only redundant (because in Old Castilian moro/a meant "Muslim"), but, to me, it also smacks of exclusionism: the Muslims of the Spanish kingdoms were Iberians, as were the Jews.  When the moriscos (converted Muslims) were finally expelled in 1609, they reversed their previous attempts at maintaining Arabic and reverted to speaking Castilian or Romance-influenced languages once settled in Muslim territories.

Finally, If Spain was not officially Christian (or Catholic) before, it was only because large parts of the Iberian Peninsula were occupied by Muslim rulers OR because Jews were allowed to live in the Christian kingdoms as second-class citizens in many ways.  They were officially chattel of the king (a status that did afford them some protection) and were primarily tolerated as contemporary witnesses to/reminders of the horror they had committed when they "murdered" Jesus.  Maybe I'm alone, but I find that theory as offensive and horrible as the thought of expulsion.  While I certainly agree that the Jewish community should stand up and recognise the similarities between the current ex-gay movement and anti-Semitism through the centuries, this article has something of the lachrymose about it, when I think it could be so much stronger and more powerful by identifying and further defining the strengths that become clear during moments of oppression, rather than bemoaning what appears to be the status quo. ...or maybe I just need to get back to work on my Ph.D and stop ranting in the comments section of Jewcy...