Social progress occurs because liberal-minded reformers defeat conservative resistance.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how slavery ended \u2013 and women gained the right to vote \u2013 and couples won a right to use birth control \u2013 and Social Security pensions were afforded to retirees \u2013 and labor was allowed to organize \u2013 and Prohibition was reversed \u2013 and blacks overcame Jim Crow segregation \u2013 and gay sex was decriminalized \u2013 and Medicare and Medicaid were established \u2013 and Sabbath \u201cblue laws\u201d were abolished \u2013 and censorship of movies and books ended \u2013 and health coverage was expanded under the Affordable Care Act \u2013 and pollution controls were enforced \u2013 and gays gained a right to marry \u2013 and many other humane advances occurred.<\/p>\n
This week, Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero will release his book Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars (Even When They Lose Elections)<\/em>. He says conservatives often feel society shifting away from their cherished privileges and prejudices \u2013 for example; they feel \u201canxiety about the demise of the patriarchal family or Anglo-American dominance or \u2018Christian America.\u2019\u201d Too late, they raise an outcry and fight a furious resistance, but the trend can\u2019t be stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cIn almost every case since the founding of the republic,\u201d Prothero wrote, \u201cconservatives have fired the first shots in our culture wars. Equally often, liberals have won\u2026 [and] a liberal win becomes part of the new status quo and eventually fades from our collective memory. No conservative today wants to disenfranchise Mormons or outlaw five o\u2019clock cocktails. So these victories no longer even appear to be \u2018liberal.\u2019 They are simply part of what it means to be an American.\u201d<\/p>\n The professor added:<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s culture wars are won by liberals \u2026 Gays and lesbians get marriage. An \u2018infidel\u2019 (Jefferson) and then a \u2018papist\u2019 (Kennedy) get the White House. Nearly as predictably as night follows day, those who declare war on \u2018infidels\u2019 or Catholics or the sins of the 1920s or the abominations of the 1960s go down in defeat. Liberals win because they typically have the force of American traditions on their side, not least the force of the Bill of Rights itself, which on any fair reading protects the rights of minorities against the impositions of majorities. Liberals also win because the causes conservatives pick to rev up their supporters are, surprisingly, lost from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n Prothero spotlights five religious-racial-moral battles in America to prove his point. The first battle was a showdown in the 1790s when conservative churchmen branded Thomas Jefferson a \u201chowling atheist\u201d in league with violent radicals of the French Revolution. The struggle involved dispute over whether America was \u201ca Christian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Elections of 1796 and 1800 \u201cturned into a cosmic battle between God and the devil, and America\u2019s first culture war was on,\u201d Prothero wrote. Alexander Hamilton called Jefferson \u201can atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics.\u201d Amid the tumult, \u201cconservatives scapegoated immigrants as \u2018hordes of ruffians\u2019 and \u2018revolutionary vermin\u2019\u201d (somewhat like today\u2019s Republican denunciations of Hispanics and Muslims).<\/p>\n In the end, Jefferson triumphed, and America became more inclusive of unorthodox people.<\/p>\n The second culture war involved a wave of violent \u201cnativist\u201d Protestant attacks on Catholics around America. In 1844, Catholic-Protestant hatred triggered a cannon battle in the streets of Philadelphia, killing dozens. Anti-Catholic riots and church burning ensued into the 1850s, spawning the \u201cAmerica for Americans\u201d Know-Nothing Party, which won 75 seats in Congress in 1854. Gradually, hatred of Catholics receded, but Protestant prejudice lingered until Kennedy won the presidency in 1960.<\/p>\n The third culture war was hostility and violence toward Mormons and their polygamy practice. Latter-Day Saints founder Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois in 1844. Also, \u201cMormon leaders would be sued, jailed, beaten, stripped naked, tarred and feathered, and murdered,\u201d the professor wrote. But this wave eventually faded.<\/p>\n The fourth culture war was Prohibition in the 1920s after evangelists and fundamentalists succeeded in banning alcohol. The struggle included conservative alarms over flappers, jazz, race-mixing, smoking, cosmetics, hair-bobbing, Sunday golf \u2013 and even evolution, as crystallized by the \u201cScopes Monkey Trial.\u201d Government-enforced sobriety bred bootleggers, organized crime, and bribery of police and prosecutors. In the end, liberals won the right for Americans to drink if they wished. Conservative churches were defeated, and Prohibition ended.<\/p>\n The current culture war arose as a backlash against the tumultuous 1960s when young Americans loosed the sexual revolution and war-denouncing counterculture. Racial desegregation, women\u2019s right to choose abortion, and the banning of government-led school prayer have further outraged conservatives. The right wing \u201c[has seen] American society drifting away from them, erasing forms of culture they held dear.\u201d<\/p>\n Over time, most Americans have accepted liberal victories, but today Tea Party hard-liners still sound right-wing trumpets. Will culture wars continue forever? Will progressives keep pushing for more personal freedoms? Dr. Prothero concludes:<\/p>\n \u201cLiberals can take comfort in the fact that they almost always win our cultural battles \u2013 that the arc of American cultural politics bends toward more liberty, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n ____________________________________<\/p>\n