No, Hitchens is calling people out on their playing of the "religion card." Why do idiotic ideas get a free pass merely because they're religious? Religious freedom is preceded by, indeed predicated on, the freedom of ideas, and that includes ideas that critique other ideas like religion. Nothing's off limits. One has as much right to criticize Hitchens for criticizing religion as he does to criticize it, but if your criticism is with his criticism per se, and not with its content, then you're the hypocrite not him. Were any serious candidate found to believe in a UFO cult or to swear by the healing powers of stones and crystals, failing to claim for those beliefs the mantel of religion they would lose the de facto respect and silence of the general public and get the grilling they deserved.