Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars (Even When They Lose Elections): The Battles That Define America from Jefferson's Heresies to Gay Marriage by Stephen Prothero; HarperOne, $26.99
In 2016, we glimpse again, in our presidential election campaigns, all-too-familiar battles: right vs. left, religious vs. secular, with extreme positions on immigration, anti-Islam fervor, abortion, and gay rights. We've heard these arguments for decades as part of our culture wars. As Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University, contends in his new book, they have been waged since the founding of our country, and have helped form our national character and traditions. Although the term "culture wars" is modern (conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan coined the phrase during his 1992 presidential campaign), it has been the mechanism by which the US, throughout its history, has wrestled with, defined, and expanded upon what it means to be American.
Prothero's study was inspired by the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy about five years ago, debating whether Muslims could build an Islamic Community Center (not a mosque) a few blocks from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan. He saw it as a clear-cut case in favor of the Muslims, focusing on two chief issues: private property rights (they owned the land) and religious liberty. Prothero realized that Islamophobia was not a new issue. Thomas Jefferson was accused of being a Muslim in the election of 1800.
Prothero defines culture wars as "angry public disputes that are simultaneously moral and religious, and address the meaning of America." These conflicts follow the same pattern throughout our history. Conservatives fire the first shot to rally anxious people to a cause they cite as an example of America's decline and a threat to our cherished way of life. Agitating people's emotions, they accuse opponents of using polarizing language, and of being a threat and responsible for our national decay. They often win elections by capitalizing on fear and frustration. The left, embracing change, responds, and usually some accommodation is made. But invariably liberals win, usually because conservatives have chosen causes that are already lost.
Prothero highlights five religious/moral battles to prove his point: branding Thomas Jefferson an atheist in the contentious election of 1800 over a dispute over whether America was still a Christian nation; nativist Protestant attacks on Roman Catholics prior to the Civil War, debating whether the US was still a Protestant country; 19th-century hostility and violence toward Mormons and their practice of polygamy, highlighting the separation of church and state; Prohibition in the 1920s, banning alcohol, really a veiled attack on the loosening of a repressive morality in the secular, "licentious," citified age of Jazz and flappers replacing small-town traditional values; the current culture war, a backlash by neoconservatives against the tumultuous 1960s characterized by the sexual revolution, the anti-war counterculture, feminism, and pluralism, including the tax-exempt status of private religious schools, the university canon wars, and what curriculum should be taught, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. This last, superb chapter recalls such pulse-rising personalities and brouhahas as Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, the "Piss Christ" photograph, Robert Mapplethorpe and the NEA, and every gay person's bete noir, Jesse Helms, though there is scant mention of the crisis that single-handedly became the poster child of the 1980s ideological apocalypse, AIDS.
All these culture wars feature debates about homogeneity vs. diversity, ultimately promoting change, serving as seedbeds for American democracy despite the nasty disputes, "the arc of American cultural politics bending toward more liberty, not less," the result always being a more inclusive country. The liberal win becomes part of the new status quo in the form of national norms, and eventually fades from our collective memory. Prothero notes that conservatives usually pick issues that paint themselves as victims, but they coalesce when the controversy is already going in the opposite direction. They choose a tipping-point working against them, since opposition to their opposition is already peaking. This is true of all cultural wars. Even today, conservatives are using religious liberty not as a protection for religious minorities (say Muslims), but as a license to discriminate against the LGBT community as a not-so-subtle critique of same-sex marriage. Prothero notes we have constantly evolved towards more religious freedom, so even Donald Trump's xenophobic attack to banish Muslims from entering the US is destined for failure, and Muslims will be accepted as part of the American family. While Prothero views culture wars as unavoidable, believing they should continue as part of a vibrant public square, they needn't be vicious life-or-death battles with each side calling the other traitors and themselves patriots.
This same trajectory applies to gay rights, and with the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage, the outcome for LGBTQ people seems clear: "It is no longer liberal to view Catholics and Mormons as fellow citizens. That sort of tolerance is now the American way. Soon it will be simply American to welcome gays and lesbians, too." During these frustrating primary-election days, Prothero's illuminating take on our current hot issues gives us hope that we can move beyond political extremism, with no side having a legitimate sole claim on American values. Liberty will be the ultimate victor, "making an imperfect nation a little less imperfect."