Cultural liberalism

Cultural liberalism supports individual freedom and equality in social and cultural life, including personal identity, expression, and lifestyle. It favors allowing people to make these choices without unjustified state or social control.

Individual liberty: The freedom of a person to make choices and act without undue coercion. It grounds cultural liberalism’s defense of personal choices in everyday life.
Social conservatism: A political outlook that favors preserving traditional social norms and institutions. It commonly gives tradition greater weight than individual choice in social life.
Same-sex marriage: Legal recognition of marriage between two people of the same sex. It applies equal status and personal freedom to family law.
John Stuart Mill: A nineteenth-century English philosopher and politician who defended individual liberty and freedom of expression. His harm principle became a lasting argument against coercing private conduct.
Secularism: The separation of religious institutions or authority from the state and public governance. It can protect freedom of belief while limiting religious control of law.
Equality before the law: The principle that laws should apply equally to people in comparable circumstances. It supports equal legal standing across identities and ways of life.
Authoritarianism: A political system or outlook that concentrates authority and restricts political or personal freedoms. Its acceptance of coercive control conflicts with cultural liberalism’s emphasis on autonomy.
Abortion rights: Legal protections for a person’s ability to end a pregnancy. The debate turns on autonomy, bodily control, and competing moral claims.
John Locke: A seventeenth-century English philosopher whose political theory defended natural rights and government by consent. His account of rights helped shape liberal arguments for limits on authority.
Civil rights movement: The movement for racial equality and equal legal rights in the United States, especially during the mid-twentieth century. Its campaigns expanded the meaning of equal citizenship and public inclusion.

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Cultural conservatismCompared with: It generally supports broader freedom to revise inherited norms than cultural conservatism does.