Do not ask from whom freedom of opinion has been stolen. It has been stolen from thee.

I don’t mean all opinions; I mean the kind of opinion that just is. The opinion that we feel no need to argue about because it is the sum total of our customs, traditions, temperament, personality, general hold on sanity, and presumption of sanity in others. It is the opinion that encompasses the whole crisp panoply of unbudgeable and unabashed certainty that we used to take for granted but which has just about vanished from the American psyche.

This kind of opinion is invariably preceded by expressions such as “even so,” “all the same,” or my grandmother’s signature line, “be that as it may.” I call them Just Because opinions, after my own rejoinder whenever matters have reached an impasse and I lose patience. Then I say, “I’m against it.” Asked why, I say, “Just because.”

Two topics that generate the most Just Because opinions are abortion and gay marriage. I’m against abortion, though I don’t really know why. I never needed one, I’m not religious, I detest children, and as a misanthropic elitist I am not overly devoted to the sanctity of life. Maybe I’m against it because I’m a monument of selfishness: Any fetus of mine would have been a little me, and the safety and comfort of a little me would have been of primary importance. The only thing I know for sure is that the controversy is an interloper in my love affair with the English language. Pro-abortion forces have been talking about “back alley” abortions since 1973, and I am still waiting for somebody to define a front alley. Not much here to win Phyllis Schlafly’s approval — and a lot to trigger her revulsion — still and all, even so, I am against abortion . . . just because.

Being against gay marriage is easier to argue but possibly more dangerous nowadays. They probably have a legitimate case in view of the fact that the Constitution has been in the process of becoming Mr. Nice Guy’s hankie for some time now. It already has “penumbra” sprouting all over it — little mushrooms resembling umbrellas to catch any anti-abortion arguments before they stick. Will gay marriage harm hetero marriage? Did the Feminine Mystique harm it? You bet. Gays are now obsessing about getting married the way women did in the ’50s, but when women finally realized that love ’n’ marriage is like a horse ’n’ carriage with manure at the shovel-ready, they fell headfirst into a steaming pile of Women’s Lib and dragged the whole country into domestic turmoil. A society suffers when too many people in it discover that the magic is gone, so what upheaval will disillusioned gays bring us?

Gay marriage cropped up regularly in Tom and Jerry cartoons of the ’40s and ’50s, like the one in which a macho eagle forces Tom to sit on the nest and hatch the eggs, or the one about the nearsighted woodpecker who drills him with a kiss, or the one about — well, watch Cartoon Network and see why I am against gay marriage just because I think it’s silly.

It was only to be expected that liberal progressives would regard the Just Because opinion as the mark of a conservative. Brevity and curtness are automatically suspect nowadays, prima facie evidence of ignorance, inarticulateness, stubborness, and prejudice, i.e., conservatism. LibProgs believe that all problems and differences can be solved by having “dialogues,” so anyone who holds Just Because opinions must therefore lack “debating skills.” LibProgs are big on skills. As Americans get more and more inept, the LibProgs chatter compulsively about skills as if to ward off the pandemic incompetence their policies have created, so if they succeed in putting out a bowdlerized version of Gone with the Wind, we can expect to read: “Miss Scarlett, I don’t have no baby-birthin’ skills!”

LibProgs have their own version of Just Because opinions. Their catch-all dismissal is calling somebody’s views “unacceptable.” Next they bite off their catch-all verdict: The speaker is “out of touch.” They also have concocted a truly marvelous imitation of a courageous community warrior mounting a last stand. They call it “zero tolerance,” a phrase that fairly reeks of the obstinacy of the weak. It usually involves a principal or school superintendent who expels a child for bringing a nail file to school or packing a plastic knife in his lunchbox. The building is emptied, the school goes into lockdown, backpacks are searched, the police arrive, it makes “Breaking News,” the parents sue, and everybody gets interviewed in a multitudinous sea of cable dialoguing, including the luckless community warrior, who declares that it is time to “move on” — LibProg for caving.

The best LibProg moments occur when zero tolerance inadvertently crosses swords with one of the big tolerance issues, such as gay rights. This has happened twice recently: A boy was suspended for wearing makeup and a girl was refused permission to pose for her yearbook photo in a tuxedo. Some dress codes are more equal than others, and these invaded the sanctuary, giving rise to the Left’s ultimate Just Because conundrum: Was the dress code violated? No, indeed, said the kids. Because? “This is just who I am.”

No day goes by that I don’t just-because something into oblivion, but I have miles to go before I can top my grandmother. One day in the ’50s when her hero, Joe McCarthy, was exposing Communist subversives, I came home from school and announced that we were studying the subjunctive in French class. Granny went into high dudgeon, like the time she got chlorine mixed up with fluorine and forbade me to go swimming, and accused the French teacher of indoctrination. I showed her my French book and we finally got her calmed down, but she furled her colors reluctantly.

“Be that as it may, we don’t need any subjunctives around here.”

It was my father’s all-time favorite mother-in-law story.