accept that spoken languages evolve.  In English, we don’t say the words “Thee” and “Thou” any more except perhaps for poetic purposes.  The word “they” is well on its way to being both a singular and a plural pronoun.  At the spoken level, it may already have achieved that status, though in most formal writing it remains exclusively a plural pronoun. 

Further, I accept that the evolution of the English language will be occasioned by the influx of individuals whose native tongue is not English.  This does not bother me in the slightest.  It is a reality.  It is a reality in English speaking countries.  It is a reality in non-English speaking countries. 

What I have just described, however, is not inclusiveness or diversity, as many adherents of political correctness dream of matters.  In fact, I am opposed to their view of things.  Let me explain why.

Increasingly, phone calls to companies are being answered by individuals who do not have a mastery of the English language.  This is quite distinct from having an accent.  For one can have an accent and be perfectly fluent in a language. 

Now, I take the idea to be that having people with various backgrounds and accents answer phone calls is representative of the true diversity of America.  There is no doubt something to this.  However, there is a problem if the company representative to whom one is speaking does not have an adequate command of the English language.  And the problem becomes particularly acute when one is trying to get clarity about a matter of great consequence, such as a health issue or the additional costs involved. 

Today, I called USAirways only to find myself speaking to someone who not only had a heavy foreign (non-Spanish) accent but whose command of the English language was such that she could not follow any of my remarks.  Things were so bad that the only way I managed was to feign politeness and thank her for everything that she had said.  It was either that, or be rude and simply hang up on her. 

I wanted to know whether the aircraft for a certain flight listed on the website is jet or not.  What I got was advice on how to clear my computer of cookies.  It was as if someone had pressed the button for the script on eliminating cookies.  For she went on about that notwithstanding my initial indication that cookies on my computer were not my problem.  I actually no how to get rid of them.

From the standpoint of diversity and inclusiveness, the entire matter was an utter disaster.  Not only was my time wasted, she has not even a clue that her response was not just unsatisfactory but entirely unrelated to my concern. 

I don’t care about accents.  But I care mightily about comprehension.  And diversity shorn of comprehension is anything but progress.  It is wildly counterproductive in just about all cases; and it is often the occasion for much misunderstanding and unsatisfactory assistance. 

Now, I can just imagine someone retorting “Well, now, you know how it feels when a person who doesn’t speak English has to talk with a native speaker of English over the phone”.  On the assumption that this is correct, so what?  Surely the right response to that situation is not for companies to have incompetent speakers of English handling phone calls.  For surely the proper way to be responsive to the disadvantaged is not to disadvantage others. 

If it is true that every country should make a point of being receptive to it citizens and residents who do not speak the primary language of the country, then how much more so does it hold that a country should not put at a disadvantage those who do speak the primary language of the country.  After all, they are people, too.

Inclusiveness and diversity are no doubt wonderful things.  But not so shorn of excellence.  If adequate customer service requires that there be people available who can speak Spanish—and presumably speak Spanish fluently, then it has to also be true that adequate customer services requires that there be people available who can speak English—and presumably speak English fluently. 

Just as it is not in any way racist to want a service representative who speaks one’s own language when English is not it, it is also not racist to want a service representative who speaks English when indeed that is one’s language precisely because it is the primary language of the country in which one was born and raised.

This last point is extremely important because the charge of racism is used nowadays to silence the status quo, whether or not its concerns or considerations have any legitimacy. 

Suppose, for instance, that it was not I but an elderly person (born and raised in America), to whom the USAirways representative was speaking.  Needless to say, that elderly person might not have had the social agility to bring the conversation to an end by repeated remarks of politeness.  Suppose that the elderly person had just a little difficulty with hearing, and that she counted upon a competent speaker of English to get her or him through the purchase of the airplane ticket.  Needless to say, the conversation would have been utterly frustrating for both.  Nay, it might have been an utter disaster for the elderly person. 

The elderly individual might have ended up purchasing a ticket that she or he did not want, since the USAirways representative had no sense at all that her initial responses were inappropriate to my question.  The only thing that lubricated the conversation were my repeated instances of “Thank You” and “I understand, now”. 

I have just leveled what I believe to be a damning criticism of the present approach to diversity and inclusiveness.  For the approach reveals an utter disregard for the elderly in America who through no fault of their own speak no other language but English.  And even if they are at fault here, as someone might dare to suggest, the elderly should most certainly not be held at accountable for it in their old age. 

We know, thanks to the gods of political correctness, that Asians and Native Americans and blacks and Latinos are people.  But the eldery?  Aren’t they people, too?  I guess the jury is still out on that.

he charge of racism is a very bizarre charge.  That is, it is not all together clear what follows if the charge is an accurate one.   For with the exception of KKK and neo-Nazi folks, it is arguable that no one is a thorough going racist.  And I am sure that even individuals who fall into either of these two camps have redeeming qualities in other aspects of their lives.  For instance, there is no incompatibility at all between being a good provider of the family and a KKK member or a neo-Nazi person. 

In their very important essay “Kant and Race,” Thomas Hill and Bernard Boxill acknowledge that, in his anthropological writings, Kant says things about non-whites—blacks, in particular—that are objectionable.  Now, from this truth there are two camps in philosophy that have developed.  On the one hand, there is Camp Indictment, which holds that Kant’s objectionable remarks about blacks taints all that he says.  Hence, even Kant’s majestic remarks that all human beings are members of the Kingdom of Ends must be read in light of his unsavory remarks about non-whites.  On the other hand, there is Camp Progressive, which holds that Kant’s untoward remarks about blacks must be cast aside or at least bracketed because (i) Kant surely recognized that blacks have just as much of a claim to being human beings as other groups have and (ii) Kant opposed slavery.

My own view is that neither position is correct.  For the Camp Progressive folks, Kant’s untoward remarks are an embarrassment.  But they want to say that he was just having a bad moment in his thinking.  Perhaps he hadn’t digested his food well that day.  Or, perhaps he was ill and was not at his best.  Camp Progressive wants to say this Kant’s untoward remarks do not reflect his mature view about non-whites.  And it is his mature views that count.  Period 

Camp Indictment won’t have any of this.  Its adherents insist that Kant meant what he said about blacks and, therefore, his moral views do not have the universality that is claimed on their behalf either by him or others. 

As far as I can see, Camp Indictment goes too far.  Suppose I offer a theory of speech, but wrongly suppose that an identified group of people is incapable of speech.  Well, it hardly follows from this that my theory of speech is wrong or that it cannot be accurately applied to the very group of people whom I have supposed is incapable of speech. 

My problem with Camp Progressive is that it protests too much.  Indeed, my problem is that this camp seems to subscribe, however unwittingly, to the view held by Camp Indictment that if Kant said anything racist, then his entire intellectual edifice crumbles.  For the intellectual effort that is employed to defend the view that in his mature thought Kant held that blacks were no less human than whites is most problematic.  I shall return to this point in just a moment.

My view is that we should do with Kant’s moral theory roughly what we do with the words of Thomas Jefferson regarding equality.  The very best evidence makes it clear that he did not mean blacks when he wrote “All men are created equal and are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights”.  But so what?  That is no reason whatsoever for folks nowadays not to apply these remarks to blacks.  Nor, again, is this a reason for blacks not to avail themselves of these remarks.  Part of moral progress consists in reading Jefferson’s remarks with a richness that he surely did not intend.  There is no need to insist that somehow, someway, he also meant blacks when he penned those majestic words.  And their majesty today most certainly is not lost just because he did not mean blacks when penned those words.  It would be just plain silly to argue that Jefferson took blacks to be the moral and intellectual equal of whites merely because, after all, he wrote “All men are created equal”.

Let me return to Kant by way of Alex de Tocqueville.  Tocqueville wrote the following:

If the black were to become free, his independence would be a greater burden then slavery itself.  This is because throughout his existence the black has learned to submit to himself to everything but reason.  Thus when reason should become his only guide, the black would not have the wherewithal to recognize reason’s voice (Democracy in America Bk. I, Part II, chap. x). 

The point here is a very simple one: The thesis that a people are human beings, leaves entirely unsettled the extent to which the individuals in question are capable of reasoning.  Neither Jefferson nor Tocqueville ever doubted that blacks were human beings.  As I observed in Vessels of Evil, the nanny role of slavery was reserved for human beings—not animals.  And the very point of Tocqueville’s remarks is that one can recognize that a people are human beings without at all supposing that they have the intellectual wherewithal to reason properly. 

Camp Progressive is way too satisfied with the truth that Kant held that blacks were human beings as if that truth settled everything.  Unfortunately, it settles very, very little.  Kant’s anthropological writings are not a problem for his moral theory.  Not at all.  They are, though, a problem for his official view of the intellectual wherewithal of non-whites.  And that, in turn, could be a problem for how just how applicable he took his theory to be to non-whites, as opposed to our own grasp of its applicability to all. 

Nowadays, Kant's views about blacks being intellectually inferior, if indeed he thought that, has no bearing whatsoever on the applicability Kant’s theory to non-whites.  None whatsoever, precisely because the issue of intellectual ability on the part of blacks is a non-issue nowadays.  And it is mindless posturing, to say nothing of a waste of intellectual energy, to go on as if Kant himself had to have held that his theory was applicable to non-whites in order for we today to hold that the theory us.  

Camp Indictment holds this silly view.  And the surprise is that Camp Progressive behaves as if it does. 

Obviously, it would be absolutely wonderful and marvelous if it could be shown that Kant held that non-whites—blacks in particular—to be the intellectual equal of whites.  But this issue is utterly independent of the soundness of his moral theory, as Hill and Boxill rightly point out in their essay “Kant and Race”. 

Kant was brilliant.  He was not, however, a particularly brilliant anthropologist, just as Einstein was not a particularly brilliant composer of music and Beethoven was not a particularly brilliant physicist.  And the argument, obviously, cannot be that everything one says has to be right in order for it to be the case that anything one says is right.  Neither Camp Indictment nor Camp Progressive can properly hold that silly view. 

Camp Indictment would have to show that Kant’s moral theory when applied to non-whites misses something that is utterly fundamental with regard to the life of non-whites and only non-whites.  And no critic of Kant in this regard has come even remotely close to showing that.  Camp Progressive, then, would do well to draw attention to this truth rather than spend all of its time arguing that Kant himself held that blacks had the intellectual wherewithal in virtue of which his moral theory was no less applicable to them than to those to whom he obviously deemed the theory applicable. 

The charge of racism, then, is proving to be most dangerous.  Not because the charge is never appropriate, as it most certainly is in some instances, but because nowadays folks of goodwill have become more concerned with the charge itself than with cultivating the good that has been made available to them. 

History reveals that every group of every persuasion and hue has held misconceptions about other groups.  And one such misconception is that a group has nothing to offer us unless it has been morally flawless.  For that line of thinking is incompatible with humanity as it should be, which is to exercise reason to discriminate between the good and the bad rather than to become fixated with the bad. 

elfishness is not a virtue.  My own view is that society has unwittingly cultivated a culture of selfishness.  This has been a consequence of the proliferation of rights.  There is nowadays a right to just about anything and everything, including a right to be offended and a right to be stupid.  In general, people justify what they do in the name of having a right to do it.  And therein lies the problem. 

The mark of selfishness is that one’s own interests count regardless of the deleterious impact one’s behavior has upon others.  On this account, then, a person is not being selfish in merely brushing her teeth or taking a shower.  Though it is possible to do these things and being selfish, as when a person deliberately and calculatingly brushes her teeth in order to use the last remaining bit of toothpaste or takes a shower in order to use the last remaining bit of hot water, the typical case of teeth brushing and showering, is not at all selfish.

As rights were initially conceived, they were not merely coextensive with a person’s desires.  Rather, they were meant to capture what is unique about being a person; accordingly, rights generally reflected duties that were owed by others.  And the extension of rights to animals accords with the idea that rights are not coextensive with desires.  Insofar as animals have rights, it is not as much about their desiring things as it is about it being proper to treat them in certain ways and improper to treat them in certain other ways.  If animals have a right not to be treated cruelly by human beings, it most certainly is not because animals have the concept of cruelty and wish not to be so treated. 

The right to life, which is generally regarded as a sine qua non of humanity, is not thought to be contingent upon whether or not one desires to live or not.  For the newborn is said to have a right to life.  But this most certainly is not because the newborn has the concept of life and the wish not to die.  And if an adult fully in possession of the concept of life wishes to die, this does not automatically render her or his right to life null and void. 

Historically, rights have been regarded as valuable things.  So it is no surprise that people wish to have the rights that they have and the things that their rights accord them.  It is a mistake, though, to infer from this rights are simply a function of desires. 

The proliferation of rights almost treats rights as if there were a one-to-one mapping between rights and desires.  Alas, this is unfortunate because it has had the untoward consequence of dignifying mere desires.  And this, in turn, has given rise to unabashed selfishness.  So people talk about the right to behave in this or that way even if their behavior is diametrically at odds with responsibilities that they have freely and voluntarily taken on.  So it is not uncommon nowadays to hear parents talking about the right to have fun and to enjoy themselves, even if this means putting at risk the newborn infant whom they brought into the world. 

The language of rights has become a justification for irresponsibility. 

Equally relevant is that the invocation of rights, these days, is tantamount to saying that a person cannot be criticized for how she or he behaves.  And this further solidifies the selfish tenor that rights have come to have.  So the language of rights can now be used not only to justify self-indulgence, but also vengeance and violence. 

The language of rights is now used to justify the absence of self-discipline. 

It would never have occurred to those who espoused the doctrine of inalienable rights that rights were a justification for irresponsibility and the absence of self-discipline.  Quite the contrary, responsibility and self-discipline were deemed to be an ineliminable feature of being a bearer of rights. 

A most unexpected consequence of the proliferation of rights is the decline of gratitude.  Quite simply, gratitude is the sentiment of appreciation and thanks that one has for the efforts that another has willingly and knowingly exerted on one’s behalf.  Gratitude can be appropriate even when a person is doing his duty.  For there is a multitude of ways in which a person can do that.  A person can most begrudgingly and reluctantly do what duty requires of her, looking for any and every excuse not to do.  Or, she can do so with the utmost commitment to the propriety of doing her duty, refusing to acknowledge any excuses however hard the task may be.  A person’s undying commitment to doing her duty is a precious moral gift that she should never go unacknowledged.

The proliferation of rights has increasingly deadened our moral sensibilities to the moral gift of those who make no excuses for themselves with respect to their duties.  This should come as no surprise.  For as we have become increasingly preoccupied with only the satisfaction of our own desires, we have become increasingly indifferent to the goodwill that others have exhibited in acting on our behalf.  And there goes gratitude.

It is easy to miss this if we focus upon the big things.  After all, one has to be a moral monster if one has no gratitude for a person who, say, saves one’s life.  But as a social lubricant, gratitude plays a most vital role with respect to the small things. 

Hopefully, I will never need anyone to save my life.  Yet, there is not enough room to list the ways in which I am grateful.  The parents of Brian Keevil and the parents Paul Frey trusted me with their sons twice a week to teach tutor them in the French language.  Their extraordinary trust has been rather like gold in a vault.  A simple gesture from a child—“Thank you daddy.  I had so much fun today—can occasion much gratitude. 

A society without gratitude is rather like the walking dead.  And in our proliferation of rights, I fear that this is what society is increasingly becoming.  And this shows in a most astounding way that there is more to life than rights. 

Rights were intended to affirm our humanity.  Most poignantly, the unfortunate truth is that it is the proliferation of rights that is squeezing the humanity out of us. 

Philosophy 191 at Syracuse University

Hugh Lafollette’s essay, “Licensing Parents,”1 raises many, many interesting and intense feelings on the part of its readers; I shall not argue that he is right or wrong.  Rather, I wish merely to address some of the inappropriate arguments against his view.

Many argue that Lafollette’s position amount to some form of eugenics.  But this is so much nonsense.  For eugenics is about invoking utterly inappropriate criteria for eliminating people off the first of the earth—normally a well-identified group of people.  Whatever, Lafollette is proposing he is not proposing eliminating people off the first of the earth.  Nor, again, is he proposing inappropriate criteria for determining who might be a fit parent or not.  Height or foot size or waist size (and the like) are utterly irrelevant when it comes the qualities that are required in order to be a good parent, as is education or economic wherewithal generally.  And Lafollette does not even come close to appealing to these things in his essay. 

Now, there is a concern that was broached by Ames and Berman, namely the slippery slope: Where on earth do we draw the line?

Well, it is interesting that human beings can be very, very good at drawing lines.  Here is an example.  Children can be forcibly taken away from their parents if the parents are abusing their children.  This socially accepted practice has not at all generated any abuse.  Children are not taken away from parents merely because the parents are gay or merely because they drink too much alcohol or merely because they gamble too much.  The socially accepted practice of taking abused children away from their parents has not at all resulted in anything that remotely resemble systematic abuse in the matter of taking children away from their parents.  Certainly, all of us know some pretty terrible parents who are in no danger, nor ever were in danger, of having their children taken away from them.

So we know as a matter of hard reality that from the fact that a practice is, in principle, susceptible to abuse, there need not be any abuse of the practice at all.  In the case removing children from their parents, the reason why there is virtually no abuse at all is precisely because there is such a strong presumption in favor of parents raising their own children that one had to move heaven and earth in order for the idea that children should be moved from their parents (in the case of physical abuse) to gain a foothold upon the members of society.

Any practice can be abused; from which it does not follow that every practice will be abused.  In the fantasy story that I put forward, where Schmo has a hard genetic disposition for being abusive of infants and intolerant of their behavior, it is far from obvious that not allowing persons with the Schmo genetic disposition to have children would result in widespread abuse, and that suddenly ugly people and poor people and gay people and people with broad noses would not be allowed to have children.  For the practice of removing abused children from their parents reveals has not over the course of time rendered us rather blasé about removing children form their parents.  Not in the slightest.  There is no evidence at all of a proclivity to take children away from their parents for other reasons. 

I turn now to an issue raised by Mr. Wilson after class.  It is an indisputable fact that risks are an ineliminable part of life.  From this, though, it does not follow that we should not take precautions where we can.  What is more, notwithstanding the fact that risks are an ineliminable part of life what most certainly does not follow is that it is just fine to expose people to risks.  Thus, I may not play Russian roulette with you on the grounds that, after all, life is full of risks.  From the fact that risks are an ineliminable part of life, it is true nonetheless that I have no right whatsoever to raise (beyond the acceptable level as determined by the circumstances) the risk that you shall be harmed.  Driving, even sober, raises the risk that someone will be harmed.  Driving while intoxicated raises the risk to an unacceptable level. 

Now, the law allows us to arrest people who are driving while they are intoxicated.  The law is not that a driver needs to injure a person first.  So when it comes to matters, the laws does allow for preventive measures.  If there is one good thing that MADD has done it has raised our awareness of just how wrong it is to drive while intoxicated, though doing that alone does not constitute injuring someone.  No, doing so merely constitutes raising the risk of injuring someone to a most unacceptable level.

So there is someone with the Schmo genetic disposition.  In view of the considerations that have been advanced in these remarks, the question that forcibly arises is quite simple: Why on earth should we persons like him to bring innocent children into the world?

The truth of the matter is that the law does allow for us to take preventive measures; and drunk driving is a clear and unambiguous precedent in this regard.  Not only that, it is a precedent that we all accept, without thinking for a moment that we sit at the top of some slippery slope and that it is just a matter of time before we won’t be do anything owing to laws of prevention.  Not even the ACLU, which can see a reason to reject just about any prohibition, has seen fit to challenge laws against drunk driving. 

In the end, Lafollette’s proposal may be indefensible.  But surely someone should at least give voice to the concerns of those who cannot speak for themselves. 

______________

1 Philosophy and Public Affairs 9(1980).

olerance is the mantra of modernity.  And offhand, one would have thought that the relationship between tolerance and hate is as follows: The more tolerance increases, the more hate decreases.  For it has been said that it is intolerance that has been the cause of so very much hate.  And there is surely no denying the truth of this latter claim.  But if the latter claim is true, then the question that forcefully presents itself is this: Why has not hate decreased in the wake of increasingly greater tolerance?  I have a simple answer, namely objectivity. 

Objectivity is to tolerance what nourishment is to food.  Food without nourishment will lead to death, no matter how tasty the food might be.  Tolerance without objectivity will lead to disaster, no matter how appealing tolerance alone might first appear. 

The claim that I have just made about food is, of course, beyond dispute.   By contrast, many no doubt the truth of the connection that I have claimed between tolerance and objectivity.  So I need to make the case for that.

To state the obvious, the tolerance in question is moral and social tolerance.  After all, no one is talking about being tolerant with regard to how airplanes or trains operate.  We want these modes of transportation to operate effectively.  And it is manifestly clear what we have to do in order to achieve that.  Again, no one is talking about being tolerant with regard to whether lions are generally ferocious or whether the domestic dog is the elephant’s natural enemy.  The laws of nature with regard to wild animals seem to be a rather settled matter.

But when it comes to human beings, the thought seems to be that there is no right and wrong way to live.  Hence, there are no deliverances from human nature in this regard.  And part of the argument, of course, is that human beings have remained alive across a multitude of radically diverse social practices.  Implicit in the argument is the assumption that human beings would die from the practices if the practices were inimical to human nature.  So, as the rhetorical question goes: Who is to say that one way of life is better than another? 

Slavery quickly becomes problematic for this point of view, since those who insist upon tolerance most certainly do not mean that slavery is just fine in societies that practice it.  And while slavery itself has died out here and there, this is not because sufficiently many of those who were either slaves or slave owners eventually died from the practice that sustaining the practice was no longer feasible.  Nor can it be argued that human nature is such that the being a slave naturally deemed inappropriate and despicable to all who are slaves.  For one this claim is false.  For another, this claims is incompatible with the very thesis advanced by those who demand tolerance, since the claim entails, contrary to what the advocates of tolerance maintain, that human nature does yield some truths about what is good and not good for human beings.

Rightfully mindful of the damage that intolerance has done, advocates of tolerance thus reason that it is better to be tolerant of all views than to be misguided en masse by a mistaken one.  Therein lies the problem.  Being tolerant of all views is not an enemy of hate.  Rather, it is a mighty friend of hate.  And one reason for this is that tolerance silences both criticism and self-criticism. 

All a person has to do nowadays is to claim to be following the traditions of his people in thinking or doing something.  And voilà: The individual almost has free rein to hold any view he damn well pleases.  “Women should be subordinate to men”: My tradition says it is so.  “All whites are racists and deserves to die”: My tradition says it is so.  Tradition bestows moral impunity upon all views.  For that, alas, is what tolerance of others is all about.  Suddenly, being true to one's traditions is a sine qua non of living well.  Whites, of course, are the exception to this principle.   

But unless one is blind, it has to be obvious that tolerance thus understood is extremely fertile soil for the seeds of hatred—the very thing that tolerance is supposed to undermine. 

Remember the idea that it is better to be tolerant than to be in the grips of a mistaken ideology.  Tolerance: Behold thy self.  Advocates of tolerance: Behold the nasty and bitter fruits of your ideology.  Here we are in the 21st Century; and hatred abounds.  And the unmistakable handmaiden of hate has been tolerance.  

My view is that tolerance without objectivity silences criticism and self-criticism.  And where the good for oneself has implications that involve the will and moral standing of another, it is simply not enough to cite tradition as a justification for one’s behavior.  Thus, hatred cannot be justified in the name of tradition.  Nor can the superiority of one’s views be justified simply in the of tradition. 

The distinctive feature of human beings vis à vis other creatures on the face of the earth is that we are capable of self-reflection.  Tolerance is inimical to self-reflection precisely because it allows people to hide behind tradition in advocating some of the most vitriolic views known to humanity. 

There is no denying that there have vicious and horrendous ideologies.  But the very point is that we rightly hold these ideologies to be false.  So the very consideration that animates tolerance is objectivity—not its absence.  The idea has been to avoid false ideologies.  This cannot be done by pretending that tradition suffices to render a view immune to moral and rational criticism. 

It will not be lost on the philosophers reading this page that what I have done is given substance to the view that the idea of tolerance when pushed far enough because incoherent, since it allows that one tolerance intolerance itself.  I have done so by putting a little flesh on the bones of tolerance, namely by drawing attention to the reality of hate. 

Present-day-advocates of tolerance must surely do mean to be supporting hate.  A most poignant truth is that is precisely what they have unwittingly done.  This is why it is has turned out that in the 21st Century the hatred that prevails is radically at odds with the fact of humanity that is known so well to all.  For the present-day-advocates of tolerance have, in the name of tolerating traditions, given their blessings to hatred itself.  No matter how sacred one’s traditions may be, the de-valuing of innocent life is not thereby rendered less morally depraved. 

To the extent that we have allowed tolerance to hijack the reality of moral innocence, we have become accomplices, however unwittingly, of evil itself. 

don’t quite believe that Liberals hate gays.  Yet, I think that liberals are not nearly as committed to gay equality, as one might first suppose.  In fact, I think that I can prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  For if liberals were really committed to gay equality, then the utter intolerance of gays in the Muslim Arabic world be an enormous source of contention for liberals. 

As we know, gay marriage is the big issue in many Western countries, including France and the United States.  Gays in the Muslim Arabic world would be absolutely thrilled if circumstances in their countries permitted gay marriage to be the primary concern.  No, simply being gay—let alone committing a gay act—is the primary concern.  One can be hanged for committing a gay act.