Did I hear John Kerry correctly on Friday night when he staked out a position in favor of federal subsidies for the poor to exercise any right guaranteed by the Constitution? Here’s the exact quote:

[Y]ou have to afford people their constitutional rights. And that means being smart about allowing people to be fully educated, to know what their options are in life and making certain that you don’t deny a poor person the right to be able to have whatever the Constitution affords them if they can’t afford it otherwise.

I know he was talking specifically about abortion (while dancing around trying to avoid saying he’d approve federal funding for abortions), but the logical premise was based on any natural right, which presumably would include birth control (Griswold), non-commercial adult sodomy (Lawrence), free speech, free exercise of religion, travel, and a whole host of other rights.