by As for Islamophobia, an “irrational fear of Islam” does not even exist; it is a trumped-up charge designed to bully us into silence and deflect criticism from the Islamists as they go about plotting terrorism and trying to shoehorn sharia law into our culture. A perfectly rational concern about the demonstrable threat of Islamic extremism does exist, however; that’s what Geert Wilders’ film expresses, and that’s what the Western media must be willing to throw a spotlight on.
We can’t have it all. If, for example, courts constitutionalized same-sex marriage, as gay activists seek, that would have a ground-shaking effect on religious liberty, public schooling and other aspects of American life. Without question, it would intensify the culture war, as partisans of the left and right fight for what each considers a sacred principle.
What irritates conservatives is the liberals’ groundless conceit that they fight from a values-neutral position, while the right seeks to impose its norms on others. Nonsense. Marriage was a settled issue until liberals began using courts to impose their moral vision on (so far) an unwilling majority. Who fired the first shot there?
