During the Danish cartoon controversy in 2005-2006 appeals to universal liberal values were often made in ways that marginalized Muslims. An analysis of the controversy shows that referring to "universal values" can be exclusionary when dominant actors fail to distinguish their own culture's embodiment of these values from the more abstract ideas. To avoid self-contradiction, liberal principles and constitutional norms should not be seen as incontestable aspects of democracy but rather as subject to recursive democratic justification and revision by everyone subject to them. Newcomers should be able to contribute their specific perspectives in this process of democratically reinterpreting and perfecting the understanding of universalistic norms and thereby make them fit better to those to whom they apply and to make them theirs, too. In this way the norms are not made cultureless but they are separated from one specific culture and made the product of the meeting of members with different cultural backgrounds.