What’s always bugged me about the Christian Right’s contention that liberals are “intolerant” of Christians is this: The Christian Right’s sense of persecution is based on the Democrats push to grant Constitutional rights to gays. So, it’s not that the State is trying to take away the rights of Christians (that would be something worth complaining about). No, Christians feel persecuted because the State is trying to treat a class of people (whose private lives Christians disapprove of) the same way the State treats Christians. So, Christians feel opressed cuz people they don’t like will be treated equally?!? That sure seems like a pompous POV for someone who considers themself a humble Christian. It’s something like a 5-Star restaurant feeling persecuted by a newspaper because the newspaper gave equal ad space to an auto-repair shop.

Now, I’m not saying gays are an auto repair shop, but I think you see what I mean.

Meanwhile, yes, Irshad Manji’s op-ed in yesterday’s NYT is super smart. Here’s my favorite jag:

As Westerners bow down before multiculturalism, we anesthetize ourselves into believing that anything goes. We see our readiness to accommodate as a strength - even a form of cultural superiority (though few will admit that). Radical Muslims, on the other hand, see our inclusive instincts as a form of corruption that makes us soft and rudderless. They believe the weak deserve to be vanquished.

Paradoxically, then, the more we accommodate to placate, the more their contempt for our "weakness" grows. And 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 antiterror 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? Where's the "mutual" in that version of mutual respect? Amin Maalouf, a French-Arab novelist, nailed this point when he wrote that "traditions deserve respect only insofar as they are respectable - that is, exactly insofar as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women."

She's on solid ground intellectually. The problem is: How does her POV translate into practical terms? Do we not allow the Nazis to march in Skokie?