Greenhouse argues that the move represents a step toward transforming the United States into something more like Saudi Arabia, a bit of hyperbole that is risible even by the basement-dwelling standards of the New York Times op-ed pages. That the Times’ generally excellent reporting remains institutionally shackled to its insipid and second-rate opinion pages must be a source of frustration for its reporters, even — especially? — the ones who share that plain-Democrat-vanilla viewpoint.

In reality, the reform moves us in precisely the opposite direction: toward pluralism. Saudi Arabia has a state religion ruthlessly enforced by moral police. Greenhouse et al. would very much like to see something like that in the United States, a kind of state-sponsored Wahhabi progressivism enforced at the point of a bayonet: Bake that gay-wedding cake, buy those birth-control pills, subsidize that abortion — or else.