After Election Day, the op-ed pages of The New York Times seriously freaked out, say the GetReligion bloggers. Their response to the number of Christians whose votes turned on moral issues can be summed up in one headline: "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out" (republished at CommonDreams).

But it seems that at least one Times columnist is beginning to settle in for the next four years. Nicholas D. Kristof, whom Weblog has previously criticized, says that while he still disagrees with the Religious Right, they're right on with international human rights issues.

"Members of the Christian Right, exemplified by [Kansas Senator Sam] Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad—thus creating opportunities for common ground between Left and Right on issues we all care about."

He then lists several human rights issues on which religious conservatives have taken the lead:

• Sex trafficking—"Paul Wellstone, the liberal from Minnesota, led an effort with Mr. Brownback and others to pass landmark legislation in 2000 to battle sex slavery around the world. But since Mr. Wellstone's death in 2002, the leadership on the issue has passed to the Christian Right and to the Bush administration."
• Sudan—"Conservative Christians have been jumping up and down about Sudan for years."
• North Korea—"It has been Mr. Brownback and other conservative Christians who have turned the heat on North Korea's human-rights record."

Kristof also rattles off other issues: "immigration reform, prison reform, increased funds for AIDS and malaria, construction of an African American history museum, and even an apology to American Indians."

"Liberals traditionally were the bleeding hearts," says Kristof, but ...