As America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia comes under scrutiny this campaign season, the White House could do worse than to follow the suggestion of a resolution introduced this week by New York’s senior senator, Charles Schumer, and Senator Collins of Maine. The resolution calls on Secretary of State Powell to add Saudi Arabia to America’s list of religiously intolerant nations — a register that last year included Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Sudan.

The State Department’s 2003 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom concluded that freedom of religion “does not exist” in Saudi Arabia — as has every such report since the department started issuing them in 1999. Despite this finding, Saudi Arabia has not been designated a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act, a move that could subject the kingdom to further action byAmerica, including economic sanctions.

“It boggles the mind that even though our own government has concluded that religious freedom does not exist in Saudi Arabia, the State Department still refuses to put any muscle into its relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement released yesterday. “We know that Saudi-funded madrassas promote religious intolerance and violence in schools. We know that Saudi Arabia brutally prohibits the public expression of religion that is not the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. And we know that Saudi efforts to export militant ideology inflame anti-Western sentiments throughout the world. If that isn’t enough to land a country on a list of religiously intolerant nations, I don’t know what is.”

Shiite Muslims in Saudi Arabia are prohibited from teaching their religion or worshipping in public, and they face state-sanctioned discrimination in employment. The kingdom’s Supreme Commission for Tourism faced criticism earlier this year for announcing that tourist visas would not be issued to “Jewish people.”The kingdom also permits judges to discount the testimony of witnesses who do not practice Islam.

Non-Muslims are often subject to arrest as well. Mr. Schumer and Ms. Collins also pointed out that in 2003 alone, Saudi authorities arrested 16 Sufi foreign workers, two Egyptian Christians, and a number of Protestant workers from abroad. In December, a foreign worker was arrested on charges of apostasy, sentenced for blasphemy, and subjected to two years imprisonment and 600 lashes.

The White House’s National Security Strategy, released in 2002, lists “religious and ethnic tolerance” among the “nonnegotiable demands of human dignity” that ostensibly guide American policy regarding international cooperation, foreign assistance, and the allocation of resources. If the Bush administration is serious about that principle, it will add Saudi Arabia to the list without needing more prompting from Mr. Schumer or his colleagues in the Senate.