Linda Greenhouse’s column in the New York Times yesterday about Sam Alito’s keynote speech at the religious liberty summit was revelatory—far more so than either Alito or Greenhouse realize.

For Alito it was an unctuous victory lap for his wins on the Supreme Court—an activity in which a Justice should not engage. 

For Greenhouse it was a “call to arms to secure religious liberty.”

It was both of those things. But it was something else—a plea on behalf of religion that Alito and Greenhouse do not understand.

Here’s what Alito said: “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.”

Greenhouse did not hear this call—definitely not a call to arms. And Alito does not understand why the nonreligious should care about religion.

Here are the reasons Alito gave—religious liberty promotes tranquility. Except it doesn’t. It promotes discrimination against those who do not share a particular religious view—see the Hobby Lobby case.

It promotes religious philanthropy. But everybody gives to charity.

It promotes social reform—not anymore. Religion is currently a block to reform. See gay marriage. See religious support for laws criminalizing gay sex.

It goes with other rights we cherish, like free speech. Then defend free speech. You don’t need religion.

At the end, Alito gives his real thought—religion is true. And that is why it is worth defending:

“The Cultural Revolution did its best to destroy religion, but it was not successful. It could not extinguish the religious impulse. Our hearts are restless until we rest in God. And, therefore, the champions of religious liberty who go out as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves can expect to find hearts that are open to their message.”

But he does not know how to explain how that could be a benefit to the nonreligious.

Ironically, this is the best reason to defend religious liberty. The religious impulse—the human need for meaning—is inherent. The nonreligious just think most expressions of this need in organized religion are not credible. They invoke the supernatural.

If you don’t indulge this impulse, if you don’t grapple with the need for deep meaning, you end up like Sam in Dana Spiotta’ novel, Wayward. This is Sloane Crosley’s quote in the New York Review: “She knew how she looked: bitchey, old, bitter. Unfit for the pressures of the world. She seemed that way because she was that way.”

That’s the way many nonreligious are. Even many who go to church.

But the whole point of hallowed secularism is to translate this impulse into genuinely secular terms—this worldly terms—while maintaining its truth: there is more to the world than what you can see and touch. There is more. Goodness and truth are real.

Practice that and you won’t end up like Sam.

Well, if secular civilization is ever to be built on that basis, it will certainly need the wisdom of the religious traditions to help it. And that is the best reason for the nonreligious to support religious liberty. Here Justice Alito is your reason.