Dare to challenge the unbeliever's contradictions regarding one of his many little "darlings" like homosexuality, pornography, or abortion, and you will quickly meet one of his secret weapons: argument by epithet. You know it well -- appealing to labels in lieu of rational arguments in an attempt to entrap an opponent between lifesize parentheses. Dare to disagree with a homosexual, for instance, and you're a "homophobe." Dare to disagree with a pornographer and you're a "bookburner." Dare to disagree with an abortionist and you're a "sexist." That's it. Period. End of argument.
Recent national and international events are case in point. The modern unbeliever, for example, hails Nelson Mandela, a self-avowed militant who was instrumental in forming the Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress which, at Mandela's command, was responsible for countless deaths and acts of sabotage. Yet, while the unbeliever generally hails Mandela and the African National Congress, he generally condemns non-militant pro-life leader, Randall Terry, and Operation Rescue.
One need not be an apologist for Operation Rescue to realize that the unbeliever can't have it both ways. If violating trespass laws to defy an unjust law is morally offensive, then all the more is conspiring to overthrow a government by inspiring murder and other extreme acts of violence.
So why does the unbeliever condemn Terry but praise Mandela? The enlightened unbeliever (oxymoron?) admirably advocates bringing apartheid to an end. As a result, he is willing, along with Mandela, to endorse any means -- even murder -- in order to bring about that end. Thus, driven by his ends-oriented focus, the unbeliever lauds Mandela as an "example" while he lashes out at Terry as an "extremist."
When you peer behind the unbeliever's question-begging epithets, however, you can see that his worldview doesn't provide him with the moral absolutes he needs in order to condemn apartheid. But instead of admitting the inadequacy and inconsistency of his own worldview, he picks and chooses the Christian moral absolutes he needs to condemn apartheid, while he arbitrarily rejects the Christian moral absolutes which condemn abortion.
The unbeliever basically takes a smorgasbord approach to ethics. And along with his smorgasbord approach to ethics comes the veiled threat that you better not challenge his relentless contradictions and his many little darlings. But why does the unbeliever want you to bow to his contradictory system? Why does he want you to put apartheid on your tray but leave abortion on the counter?
You wouldn't want to be called a "racist" would you?