The Return of the Culture Wars

The resurgence of social and cultural issues in voters' minds poses new challenges for GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney as he reels from surprising losses Tuesday to conservative favorite Rick Santorum.

The economy remains the No. 1 issue of concern for a majority of Americans. But the recent hoopla surrounding the Obama administration's support of contraceptives, the court ruling against California's same-sex marriage ban and heated debate about abortion access has created a perfect storm that has pushed these seemingly dormant issues to the surface.

"They've never been far from the surface. A lot of people thought the social issues had disappeared but that has never been the case," said Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who focuses on polling data and public opinion. "These issues are obviously very important within a conservative party, the Republican party."

Even the general public has increasingly leaned to the right. In a Gallup poll last month, 40 percent of Americans identified themselves as conservative, 35 percent as moderate and 21 percent as liberal. The numbers marked the third straight year that conservatives outnumbered moderates, which have declined steadily since the early 1990s.

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daves

Why can't we all just live and let live. We don't need a war.
DanMK

In fact we have the economic crisis because of our forgetting God . The blessing of our financial properity is due our obedience to God's laws .You can't have the God's blessing without the responsibility to God. If I use my money to finance and practice evil you can't be a moral force to bring God into the world as our founders proprosed and will be cursed..
- Deep_Thinker
  
  We have a financial crisis (that was predicted by the aware) because of artificial booms created by the Federal reserve…. I'd also challenge you to show me where our founders proposed we should use our money to bring God into the world..
- http://rationalresponses.blogspot.com/ Jeff Dixon
  
  The Chinese have hardly been praying to the Christian god, yet their economy is currently doing well. It seems that there must be other explanations besides a belief in an imaginary god for why an economy does good or bad.
  - Mexseiko
    
    The Chinese economy has for many years been propped over the bucks of the People. Also, the Chinese continually reverse-engineer inventions and produce them, again, on the backs of the people. They pirate software, they slack on standards of quality. They've killed a lot of their babies on bad formula. They produce bad beef. Brad Pitt donated Chinese construction materials for housing in New Orleans. Had to replace all the wall panels because they got moldy. They had a major train crash because they did not install certain safety devices to save costs. They didn't investigate cause they knew, so hurried the train with corpses and all.
    
    Yup! Their economy is booming.
    - http://rationalresponses.blogspot.com/ Jeff Dixon
      
      I did not say the Chinese society was one to praise, I said it was currently doing well. And that is true, regardless of the other problems they may have.
Chris P

If you don't want to be gay – don't be gay. If you don't like abortion – don't have one. Will the religious STOP interfering in other people's lives. We aren't going to force you to use contraception – just that some women will likely die or become infertile without it.

But then you people are clueless about biology.
- Deep_Thinker
  
  Morality exists within people. You can't force people to live a moral life. It is good that these individuals desire to live a good life.. But they do need to stop forcing others to do the same. That almost always backfires. You cannot legislate morality, and it holds no value unless it is a choice.
  - http://rationalresponses.blogspot.com/ Jeff Dixon
    
    Humans, as with many primates, are a social animal. Activities that benefit the group such as cooperation and sharing help to insure the group will survive and succeed. Actives such as murder and rape do not benefit the group and as such are considered bad. It is not that any type of religious morality exists within people, it is that we are driven to make sure we survive as a species.
  - Mexseiko
    
    Be it morality or immorality both are imposed on people. Precisely we're in a middle of a discussion where the government is imposing on people what Catholics and most Christians believe to be immoral. Christians are unwillingly paying (through taxes) for immorality. The government education system teaches evolution as if it's a proven truth and excludes everything else. If there's any compromise, shouldn't it be on the obvious side? Adultery used to be illegal, but now it's a right (privacy, consensual). Abortion is the law of the land, having been justified as the right to privacy. This is a scary precedent which opes the doors for all kinds of immoral acts. Like freedom of expression has been used to justify nudity. The courts in California have stricken down the will of the people which rejected gay marriage by 70%.
    
    We're in chaos and most of it is because of immorality, not because if the alternative.
    - http://rationalresponses.blogspot.com/ Jeff Dixon
      
      The use of biblical rules to execute or beat or brand people for immorality was a savage tradition. This country has matured to the point that we can put away criminalized moral codes and leave such matters to individual citizens, their families and their respective faiths. It is time to allow couples to police their own marriages.
Wayne

I love those little canned word clips, "You can't legislate morality", "Quit interfering in our lives", and all the rest from the putrid filth hole mouths of libs. It magnifies their misguided and twisted ways. Of course we can legislate morality, that is what laws have been about since the beginning of civilization. Why do you think we have laws on the books prohibiting queers from practicing their perversions, or from copulating or masturbating in public places (yet they do it purposely public at OWS camps)? You find that Laws will and always have interfered with the lives of some, and many are intended to keep a sense of morality in the land. Here's the deal folks, Liberals are always getting into our faces telling us we should not hunt, own guns, fish for a living, allow our cattle to crap near streams (yet they do it on cop cars), eat meat, drive large vehicles, use aerosol spray cans, drive gasoline powered vehicles, have non-green electricity in our homes, use R12 refrigerant, make more money than they think is allowable, drill for oil, build pipelines to carry oil or natural gas, build nuclear power plants, have dams on rivers to save us from flooding and to generate power, enforce laws to stop illegal trespass into our country, stop Sharia law from becoming the law of the land, have more than 1 child, go to war for any reason…… on and on it goes. Liberals want to legislate our every move right down to what we eat and drink.

Now when some conservative says, "hey, I don't want my money or my church involved in contraceptive or abortive practices because it is against my religious beliefs" the libs go wild! If the libs were not so serious, it would make most sane people laugh these libs to scorn!! What transparent hypocrites they are!! They would like to legislate to us our every movement and choice in life, yet when it comes to saving a child from death in the womb, we are called fanatics. Please, you libs trolling around here, go back to your momma's basement computer and contrive any other excuse than the old worn and tired phrases you use to defend your idiocy. Conservatives in the coming election will build a stronger majority in the house, take over the senate and the Presidency from the buffoon (non-legal president) who sits in the oval office now. Then we might see some legislation of morality from the bench that will singe the creepy little hairs on your creepy little heads.