How conservatives lost the culture war

[DonViejo]

The triumph of gay marriage is rooted in the country's founding

By Damon Linker | 6:28am ET

This is a demoralizing moment for combatants on the conservative side of the culture war. Every few days, it seems, a judge strikes down a state statute or constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. (The latest was in Texas.) The Supreme Court (or rather, Justice Anthony Kennedy) seems poised to nationalize gay marriage at any time. And of course there's the defeat of Arizona's anti-gay bill. The desperate effort of Arizona lawmakers to pass such a law in the first place (along with a similar ill-fated attempt in Kansas) recently inspired Andrew Sullivan to remark that we're living through the "death throes of the anti-gay movement."

That may well be right. But what if we're living through something even more significant? A poll released this week by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute reinforces what a series of surveys have shown for years: an incredibly rapid and far-reaching shift toward public acceptance of both homosexuality and gay marriage. Indeed, PRRI's new numbers are so stunning that they inspired conservative culture warrior Rod Dreher to declare in no uncertain terms that "the culture war is over. The other side won."

When it comes to gay issues, I think he's right. (Abortion is another matter altogether.)

How did it happen? As I've argued before, the triumph of gay marriage can ultimately be traced back to the 2,000-year-old Christian ideal of equality. More recently, a shift in the definition of marriage took place after the introduction of the birth-control pill in 1957.

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http://theweek.com/article/index/257126/how-conservatives-lost-the-culture-war

[Eleanors38]

1. In a culture war, you are always on the winning side when

you expand rights, rather than restricting them.