Jonathan Chait writes,

Why should we maintain an informal social etiquette that discourages people from openly disparaging other people’s religions and touting their own as superior? Gee, that seems kind of obvious to me. I strongly doubt that Wehner and Shales [I think this is a typo on Chait’s part, and he actually means “Ponnuru”–RP] would be happy to see, say, Muslims going on television to blame Mark Sanford’s Christianity for his adultery and urge him to convert to Islam. Of course, I can’t prove this, because no major television network would ever allow it. But I’d at least like to hear them say that they’d be happy to see their rule applied to all religions. Otherwise, they need to admit that what they favor is not some wild theological free-for-all in our public discourse, with all religions touting their superiority and disparaging others, but rather a privileged place for Christianity.

I would object to Muslims’ “going on television to blame Mark Sanford’s Christianity for his adultery,” as I would object to Brit Hume’s going on television to blame Tiger Woods’s Buddhism for his adultery–because those comments would be stupid, not because they implied the superiority of one religion to another. But, obviously, I don’t think that Hume said anything like that, and thus I don’t think that Chait’s parallel works. If a Muslim went on tv to say, for example, that Western societies are licentious and a widespread embrace of Islam is the cure, I’d disagree with the argument and say so–but I wouldn’t consider it at all improper for a pious Muslim to make it. (That’s not to say that I think there should be no rules of religious etiquette at all: If Hume called Buddhism a “gutter religion,” for example, I think that would be out of bounds.)

Of course it is true that in America there will be more of an audience for pro-Christian than pro-Muslim sentiments. I have no problem with that, any more than I have a problem with the fact that in other societies a more relaxed etiquette of religious expression will tend to benefit other religions.