So Who Started the Culture Wars?

Most everyone, unless they live under a rock, knows about the culture wars currently raging across the U.S. over abortion and special legal protections for Gays and Trans genders.

Since 2004 the culture wars broadened its reach to cover issues like gun control, Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom, illegal immigration and last but not least the clash between the constitutionally guaranteed right of Freedom OF Religion versus the ad-lib- concept of Freedom From Religion.

We could say the Culture Wars changed into the Worldview Wars or better yet the Wars of Civilizations.

Acknowledging the culture wars exist isn’t the problem getting the parties responsible to own it most definitely is?

Assigning blame to opponents seems to be a favorite national pastime, but it’s easy to see why when playing the victim card translates into political capital, especially when compared to the disadvantages of being revealed as aggressor.

The culture wars fired its first shot in 1973 when abortion was legalized nationwide in the U.S. by a majority of Republican Justices in the Roe vs Wade test case, citing the due process clause of the 14th amendment provided women with a fundamental right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.

Initially this decision resulted in abortion allowed unconditionally during the first trimester, limited to health reasons in the second and prohibited in the third.

American public support in favor of a woman’s right to choose stood at 64% while Republicans favored the measure at 68% according to polls at the time.

But the Roe versus Wade ruling had its critics both inside and outside the legal profession with those opposed seeing it as nothing less than judicial activism, with one legal scholar criticizing the decision as not only NOT constitutional law, but gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.

The anonymous plaintiff called Roe in the action lawsuit was identified as a woman by the name of Norma McCorvey.

The pro-abortion activism behind Roe vs Wade

McCorvey, a young, unmarried, poor pregnant woman with two other children in tow was initially advised to file a rape charge to secure an abortion in Texas, but it was withdrawn because that state didn’t allow abortion on those grounds and she couldn’t afford to travel to another state.

As things turned out McCorvey carried her daughter to term giving her up for adoption before Roe vs Wade went ahead.

In her biography McCorvey describes herself as a former drug addict and alcoholic who had a dysfunctional upbringing and though she had many regrets in life, the main one was her association with Roe vs Wade.

She confessed to having lied about being raped saying the child was the result of a relationship of love.

She claimed to have been the victim of her attorneys whom she accused of exploiting her personal predicament to score a victory for the abortion rights cause.

She later became a pro-life campaigner.

Roe vs Wade was propelled forward by pro-abortion NGO’s supported by activist lawyers and judges, resulting in activism both sides of the abortion divide developing a life of its own.

Supreme Court Justices and politicians back then took the view government shouldn’t intervene in a woman’s right to choose either way, but what exactly weren’t they saying?

It’s a good question because politicians, political judges included, have a tendency to speak out of both sides of their mouths.

So government didn’t want to intervene in a private matter yet they passed legislation to do just that.

What they obviously meant was they didn’t want abortion limited to the fewer numbers of states or certain conditions but to cast the net far and wide.

Government and their handlers wanted national legal abortion for political and financial reasons, the abortion organization Planned Parenthood was at that stage already receiving healthy government subsidies which increased exponentially year on year since then.

Abortion Now

The abortion wars heated up recently with opinions divided between banning abortions entirely in some red states, with blue states wanting abortions at any stage of pregnancy, and more moderate views slap bang in the middle.

Some states are on the way to repeal the ban on controversial partial birth abortions, basically the murder of a full term or viable infant in the birth canal, preventing the head being ‘born’ to avoid abortionists being charged with infanticide by using a legal loophole.

But everything’s been turned on its head right now, I came across this headline to an article; Pregnancy kills, abortion saves lives, written by a physician specializing in late term abortions who got some free publicity for the cause courtesy of the New York Times.

It used to be that abortions killed with state of the art advances in obstetrics making pregnancy safer than at any other time in history.

But with activist judges, activist lawyers and now activist doctors this hot-button issue shows no signs of fading.

Fast Forward to the Moral Majority

What was it about the moral majority that set liberals teeth on edge and infuriated like-minded Christians who believed politics and religion shouldn’t mix?

Depending on who you speak to the moral majority was one of three things, a political organization, a civil advocacy group or an advisory body that paired with the conservative wing of the Republican Party to uphold traditional Christian values setting it against militant feminism, sexual permissiveness and gay activism.

It stood behind the right of citizens to bear arms, was pro-life and supported public prayers in schools.

The Moral Majority kicked off in 1979 and in its way was a reaction against the 1960’s sexual revolution.

The existence of this movement led to over-the-top hysteria by opponents, with claims the MM would turn America into a theocracy despite them not understanding that type of rule.

Theocrats would have to take over or abolish the three separate branches of Government with their devolution of powers.

Regardless of whether one agreed with them or not; was the moral majority any different to other activist groups who lobbied for change?

The main differences were; they were upfront about their goals, campaigned publicly and relied on donations, unlike many advocacy groups with limitless pots of money behind them to throw at pet causes, who secretly lobby government to effect change through the back door.

In 1989 the moral majority disbanded when donations all but dried up, saying they’d achieved what they had set out to do.

Redefining Marriage

The U.S. Supreme Court redefined marriage in 2015 as between any two parties, not limited to one man and one woman, leading liberal groups to claim it a major victory for gay rights.

This move followed on the heels of forty years plus of gay activism both public and private.

One author said, “The more we get married, the more normal we seem. And the more normal we seem, the more human we seem, the more our equality seems obviously important.”

But oddly enough a lot of resistance to gay marriage initially came from within the gay community with marriage seen as a “problematic” institution.

They believed gays should concentrate on reshaping social norms rather than trying to fit into them.

But as one gay marriage campaigner said “What’s at the center, the heart, of the discrimination gay people face? It’s the denial of our love. And what is the central institution of love? It’s marriage. Therefore, we needed to claim the freedom to marry, because it would be an engine of transformation for the way society viewed gay people.”

So the gay activist revolution didn’t end when the Supreme Court redefined marriage as many naively expected.

The bill HR 5 named the Equality Act has now passed in the House; it eliminates the protections enjoyed by the Religious Restoration Act while granting wide raging protections for LGBT causes and funding for abortions.

So, who started the Culture Wars?

It deserves an answer because we need to challenge false accusations carelessly recited over and over to get to the heart of the matter, so it needs to be said.

Conservatives of all stripes have been accused of starting the culture wars but this isn’t remotely true.

Progressive activism has been a thing since the 1960’s, steadily increasing since then and accelerating over the last twenty odd years.

So we know progressives throw accusations to shift blame and keep the focus away from them but that’s only part of the story.

Religious conservatives knew of the brewing fight for gay marriage behind the scenes eventually resulting in the Supreme Court decision and warned as much, which didn’t endear them to activists who wanted to bring it in by stealth.

It can be argued with big money backing gay marriage,conservatives were wasting valuable time and should have made contingency plans,focusing on how such a move would affect them.

Battening down the hatches in other words but ……………..nonetheless.

In the world of political philosophy it’s the nature of radicals to push for change incrementally to overturn society, while it’s the nature of conservatives to push back.

With progressives, mores are constantly in a state of flux while for conservatives they’re more or less even.

In this reality radicals are the aggressors while conservatives are the defenders.

So why were activists and their allies so enraged conservatives were acting in the predictable way, holding the position of defense in the game.

If the revolution of the sixties was seen as the start but not the end point,it might go some way toward explaining the attitude of liberal progressives.

They obviously expected the total surrender, or a keeling over of their opponents.

And because conservatives had the audacity to ‘defend’ tradition they were hailed as people ‘looking for a fight’.

Radicals only win when their opponents ‘give up’ by abandoning the fight.

Remember this next time some loser blames conservatives for starting the culture war.

But conservatives are at a disadvantage playing defense; for it to work they have to always be on their guard to fend off an attack.

When they lose the will to battle it’s time-up.

For the Christian in the U.S. their weakness is an adopted version of the liberal Protestant turn to experience.

Conservative Catholics brand of faith is a totally different religion to that of the losey gosey Protestants, which is why they’re regarded with such scorn right now.

And it’s the theology of the protestants that‘ll be no help to conservatives in resisting a culture that’s all about celebrating the desires people find within them.