Whenever secular liberals are challenged on one of their latest innovations in ethics, their reply almost invariably goes something like this: \u201cWell, if you are opposed to same-sex marriage, then marry someone of the opposite sex.\u201d\u009d Or: \u201cIf you are so against abortion, then don\u2019t have one.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
In other words, in the immortal words of Rodney King, why can\u2019t we all just get along? I\u2019ll let you have your morality if you let me have mine.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, though, the veil slips and liberalism shows that its fondness for the \u201clive and let live\u201d\u009d principle is only skin-deep. The latest example of a more bare-knuckled liberalism comes from that famous mangler of the English language, Vice President Joe Biden. On his recent visit to the Far East, he expressed his \u201cunderstanding\u201d\u009d for China\u2019s one-child policy, which is regularly enforced by compelling women in their second pregnancy to abort their child. True, he went on to criticize that same policy, but only on utilitarian grounds: As to the delicate point of government lackeys dragging women from their homes and fastening them to hospital gurneys\u201d\u201dnot a word. \u201cPro-choice,\u201d\u009d indeed.<\/p>\n