The United States is a jarring contrast between liberals and conservatives.

President Barack Obama talked passionately about gay rights and other liberal ideals in his inauguration speech on Jan 21. But during his speech, a man perched in a tree just behind where I sat and not that far from the Capitol building, kept shouting anti-abortion slogans. He called Obama a "baby killer" and held up a sign that read: "Pray to end abortion."

Four days later, on Friday morning, when I arrived at Woodley Park subway station, I was shocked to see some 100 teenage students holding anti-abortion slogans and gruesome fetus pictures. They were on their way to the National Mall for the so-called March for Life.