There’s a brilliant op-ed by Irshad Manji in today’s NYT responding to Tony Blair’s moves to deport Islamo-fascist clerics. She confronts what so many people seem to view as a contradiction at the heart of Western liberalism: Our society, dependent as it is on tolerance (of different religions, political points of view, ethnicities, and, yes, sexualities), doesn’t know how to respond to people whose world views are fundamentally intolerant. The money quote, as Andrew would put it, is this:

[The] ultimate paradox may be that in order to defend our diversity, we’ll need to be less tolerant. Or, at the very least, more vigilant. And this vigilance demands more than new anti-terror laws. It requires asking: What guiding values can most of us live with? Given the panoply of ideologies and faiths out there, what filter will distill almost everybody’s right to free expression? Neither the watery word `tolerance’ nor the slippery phrase “mutual respect” will cut it as a guiding value. Why tolerate violent bigotry?

Manji’s op-ed is being praised by the right, as well it should be. It deserves praise from everyone with a brain in her head. But Manji’s call for intolerance to be met with intolerance applies not only to Islamic preachers who preach hate and would compel others to live by the strictures of their faith. It also applies to American preachers who do the same.

When gays and lesbians express disgust or contempt for, say, the Pat Robertsons of this world, we’re accused of being intolerantand isn’t that hypocritical of us? After all, isn’t tolerance what we’ve been asking for? How can we refuse to tolerate Pat Robertson?

But as Manji points out, being intolerant of intolerance is not the moral equivalent of being intolerant. Violence is always wrong, everyone agrees. But there are times when violence is justified. For instance, violence is justified in self-defense. Well, being intolerant of the intolerant is simply tolerance acting in its own self-defense. It is justifiable intolerance.

[This post first appeared at AndrewSullivan.com, where I’m guest blogging all week.]