The revolution in Syria hasn't been a unified cause for a long time now and for some there's always been some religious stigma attached to it. Being that I'm first generation Syrian American and have been to Syria I can tell from firsthand experience that the muslims in Homs (I'm not saying this is unique of muslims in Homs rather I'm talking about them specifically because their city suffered the most damage from this civil war) didn't come off as people who want democracy. I am part of population of Syrians that is "culturally" Christian. What I mean by this is not many people publicly denounce their religion there and those that do are still seen as being associated with it anyway. Being that Homs was the closest major city to the place my family and I were staying in, we were there a lot. Apart from wearing some sort of religious symbol or verbal communication, the most common way muslims in the city could find out we were Christian is by the fact that our women weren't covered. In addition to giving them strange looks, they would sometimes openly criticize them without speaking directly to them. The most common being "Look at what she's wearing" in a demeaning way sometimes being followed by an insult that's along the lines of calling the woman a whore.

Most minorities support Assad. I personally think its because he protects those groups from discrimination by the vast majority and not because they prefer a dictatorship. Furthermore, I think they fear that Assad can only be replaced with a leader that will make living conditions more unfavorable for minorities. Basically, they have a rational fear of the country becoming an islamic theocracy.

I don't entirely agree with the way Assad has been dealing with the revolution, but I do think that things will only get worse if he falls. Unfortunately, the revolution was destined to fail from the start.