A 'moral voter' majority? The culture wars are back

"Over the past 30 years, there's been a gigantic cultural shift to conservative values. The country is becoming more traditionally religious, and that's now showing up in the elections," says Richard Land, a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest US Protestant denomination. "The liberal secularist's worst fears are coming to pass: a grand alliance of white Evangelicals, black Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons," he insists.

Others agree that the 2004 election marks the arrival of Evangelicals at the core of the Republican party. "They've replaced mainline Protestants at every level except at the top," says Dr. Guth. "On social issues and foreign policy, they are at the core. On tax cuts and economic policies, they ... may be even more supportive than the business community."

The religious right has long promoted criticism of "secular, liberal elites," whom they hold responsible for unbridled individualism and moral decline in schools and society. But there are critics who insist those positions hold dangerous contradictions. For example, while religious conservatives enthusiastically champion free-market capitalism and corporate tax cuts, such critics say, who is it that promotes the Hollywood values and pornography they so vehemently oppose? Not the liberal political leaders, but corporate interests most benefiting from those policies.

At the same time, some warn that Democrats are in danger of overemphasizing the economic and not connecting sufficiently on cultural values. "Most Democratic elites believe that economics drives everything ... and it's just not true," says Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican activist now with the Democratic Leadership Council. "If Democrats aren't better able to address cultural issues, then the electoral map will continue to shrink."

With the US shifting to the right, others see a necessity to explicitly counter the antiliberal rhetoric fueling the culture war.

"There are profoundly important and precious values that liberals stand for that are central to the founding of this country - liberty, human rights, and human dignity," says Wolfe.

Any values debate, he says, must involve Americans considering more deeply how values are reflected in the country's actions.

"Abu Ghraib is a deep moral crisis. Some 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq - that's a profound moral crisis involving religious values," Wolfe adds. "That this doesn't register with so many Americans is disturbing and difficult to understand."

While Americans greatly differ over which values deserve priority, it's also true that societal values are continually shifting. Despite the overwhelming approval of marriage amendments in the states, 63 percent of Americans now support either civil unions or legalized gay marriage. In a Gallup poll this summer, 58 percent of conservatives said divorce is "morally acceptable." Divorce is as common among Evangelical Christians as among other faith groups.

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