No. I know that it is not entirely all about that. There are 4 aspects of the political spectrum. Top, Bottom, Left, and Right. The top represents Libertarians. The Bottom represents authoritarians. The Left represents liberals (they start using the word "progressive" because it sounds better than their tainted word of "liberal") and the Right represents conservatives.
You can have leftist libertarians which favor gay marriage and the freedom to murder unborn babies. Then you have conservatives who tend to favor traditional values. the Tea Party is the more conservative libertarians who favor gun rights and are pro-life (favoring freedom of unborn babies to live), and then conservative authoritarians who believe in being strict about their conservative values. The bottom left would be more socialist.
Liberal values you see equality BUT usually in the sense of what sounds nice in theory, but not always in practice. For example, liberals will try to make sure that they have at least 1 black, 1 woman, and 1 hispanic person - one type of every type of people, so that no type of person feels misrepresented. For example, there's even some Republicans in the Obama Cabinet.
Republicans would just rather choose the qualified individuals, regardless of what color or gender they are. But if it's all white men, then some people might think that they're being too exclusive. This isn't always the case anymore like it used to be, due to the ambitiousness of women and minorities.
But, I understand that that's how the 'general idea' of the mindset works.
I understand that in the US media, the term 'liberal' has come to refer to the left, but really that's not what the term means, in a political philosophy sense. That's what I was trying to explain -- someone who is for stem cell research, gay marriage, stricter seat-belt laws or gun control is a progressive -- that is, his political philosophy is based around pursuing (presumably positive) change. The opposite of a progressive is a conservative, or, someone who favours less or slower change.
A liberal is outwith that spectrum entirely: A liberal would be opposed to an authoritarian. Liberal and libertarian are, you might be annoyed to find out, essentially derived from the same political stance: More freedoms, less control. In America, I understand, the term liberal has been appropriated by the left and used instead of progressive, because back in the first half of the 20th century, America was getting scared of the Communists, who really loved that 'progressive' word, and so the left-party switched to something that would resonate with the American public: Liberal.
In political terminology, though, a liberal would be someone who favours more freedoms: Less gun control, less bans on abortion, less regulation of the school system, less prohibition of scientific research, etc. The word you use is not analogous to what a 'liberal' is.
You claimed that liberals will try to include people of different ethnicities, sexes and orientations, but that's not really true: A progressive would try to do that. A liberal would say that everyone ought to have the same chance -- less regulation.
So, my message for you is this: You evidently consider yourself a libertarian, and you don't like regulation from the government, but you do like the idea of equality and equal opportunity for everyone, instead of government-mandated quotas.
Guess what? You're a liberal.
