It's about the SEX stupid!
or
Everything you always wanted to know about why the Republicans hate SEX, but were too afraid of finding out to ask...
So what's the Cultural War really about? Well, it's all about abortion right? The prerogative of every fetus to be carried to term. And yet the focus on abortion never quite made sense. How can a fetus be sacrosanct, yet it be suddenly OK to destroy a human life once it's born, especially if such life happens to be black/brown and poor and live in Texas? Why is abortion so evil, whereas it's morally acceptable to obliterate hundreds-of-thousands of Iraqis (oh wait, I forgot, we're freeing them from he-who-shall-not-be-named). And while we're on the subject, it's also morally OK to alter the global climate, at the same time extinguishing more species than Chicxulub, and yet every sperm remains sacred.
Of course, the moral inconsistencies in Republican policies extend beyond the weighty matters of death and extinction. Astronomical budget deficits (which, according to Dick Cheney, Reagan proved don't matter), regressive taxes, the widening gulf between rich and poor, the politicizing of civil service jobs. And, of course, state-sponsored torture. All of these Republican-sponsored policies are somehow morally acceptable. Yet to even consider the possibility that an undifferentiated mass of cells could be deserving of anything but the full protection of the federal government and it's virtually unlimited coercive powers, well that's tantamount to genocide (in the words of a minor contender for the Republican presidential nomination).
What gives? Can the moral disconnect of Republican policies on Capital Punishment/War/Global Warming/Deficits/Taxes/Income Disparity/Apolitical Civil Service/Torture, on the one hand, and Abortion/Reproductive Rights on the other, really be that vast? Or is there something else at work? Do Republicans really like babies that much? Or is it that they hate the way babies are made (unless, of course, they're being made with the sole objective of making them)? Would Republicans actually care one whit about abortion if fetuses came from mail order catalogs? Or from sneezing too much? Or from any activity other than SEX? If abortion is murder, why make exceptions for rape and incest? We prosecute conventional murderers even when the victims are less than perfect citizens (drug dealers, prisoners, prostitutes and whatnot), albeit often with less zeal than when the victims are more media friendly. Why then are the ostensible victims of abortions (e.g. the fetuses) delegitimized by virtue of their less than perfect parentage (e.g. rapists)? The answer, of course, is SEX. Rape victims did not choose to have SEX, and thus remain eligible for the great get-out-of-pregnancy-free card. Everyone else, well, gets what they deserve.
Abstinence-only sex-education programs? Despite study after study showing no efficacy at all for such initiatives, Republicans continue to back (and fund) abstinence-only programs to the exclusion of all else. Despite sky rocketing teen pregnancy rates, birth control remains verboten to the entire Republican base. How many fewer abortions would be performed if America adopted a comprehensive, nation-wide program of sex-education and birth-control? Yet the real objective doesn't seem to be reducing the number of abortions, does it? The little fetuses don't actually matter. The real objective is to stop everyone from having SEX.
And if you think the Republicans hate SEX, let's don't even try to gauge how much they hate GAY SEX.
Indeed, the ultimate political fault line in American lay not along the boundary between rich and poor, or between black and white, or blue collar vs. white collar, or between any of the traditional demographic categories. The real division in America is between those who like SEX, or are indifferent to SEX, or simply eschew the call for a crusade against SEX, and those who fundamentally hate it.
I do not know whether Democratic candidates can exploit this division to their electoral advantage. Running on a pro-SEX platform is probably not a winning campaign strategy. Not yet anyway. On the other hand, perhaps we shouldn't shy away from naming the Republican Anti-Sex League for what it is. I could certainly imagine a Democratic candidate, in response to a question about abortion or abstinence, starting out by simply declaring, "I am not a member of the Republican Anti-Sex League...". If this is the real issue dividing America, Democrats may be much better off getting it out in the open, rather than letting it rear its head in multiple distorted forms.
In this, as with so many demographic trends, the momentum is with the Democrats. Our kids are having far more SEX than than our parents had, and are burdened with far less inhibitions about it. The puritanical strain in American remains strong, and electorally very potent, but its heyday has long past and its strength must inevitably decline.
I propose that the term, "Republican Anti-Sex League" be used to deprecate any policy whose real agenda is, in fact, to stop people from having SEX, regardless of what that policy might purport to espouse on its face. This is especially true with respect to the debate about abortion/reproductive rights. The Republican Anti-Sex League is the core of the Republican party and is more-or-less responsible for all of its many perversions. Why can't Democrats simply name the beast for what it is?