On trying to "accomodate" religious beliefs

Like so many, including the White House, Kristof does his best to describe the controversy over the birth control mandate as a Catholic issue. In his “Beyond Pelvic Politics” column he wrote of “Catholic universities and hospitals,” “Catholic institutions,” and “a majority of Catholics.” The fact that so many evangelical Christians share this concern and outrage is never mentioned.

After asking his most pressing question, “After all, do we really want to make accommodations across the range of faith?,” he makes this amazing statement:

“The basic principle of American life is that we try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them where we can.”

That sentence caught the immediate attention of many. Could someone of Nicholas Kristof’s influence and stature really write and mean that?

When President Obama spoke February 10, announcing his administration’s modifications to the birth control issue, he at least spoke of religious liberty as “an inalienable right that is enshrined in our Constitution.” The President then made the error of speaking as if an “inalienable right” is to be accommodated to a matter of policy. That was bad enough, and very revealing of the President’s worldview and constitutional perspective. Nicholas Kristof’s statement is light years beyond the President in disrespect for religious liberty.

Where would we find what Kristof describes as “the basic principle of American life,” when he goes on to state that principle with language as chilling as “we try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them where we can”?

The language of accommodation is almost as old as the Constitution itself, but it was never framed as Kristof frames it — certainly not by the founders who spoke of “inalienable rights” granted to human beings by the Creator’s endowment.