You know something is changing in American mores when the supposed leader of the culture wars from the right, Sarah Palin, declares that smoking pot is “a minimal problem” and that “if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in.”
Like many other pointless wars, the culture conflict has mainly resulted in exhaustion. Now the troops are laying down their arms and going home.
More and more Americans, particularly in the youngest generation of adults, are shrugging at drug use, gay relationships, pre-marital cohabitation, single motherhood, interracial marriage (which is now all but universally accepted) and gun ownership. More and more people aren’t bothering to lug their church to the voting booth.
If only people between the ages of 18 to 29 voted, 38 states would support gay marriage, says a study by Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips of Columbia University. Will today’s youngsters change their minds about gay marriage as they age? Don’t count on it.
Support for issues such as gays’ ability to adopt and marry appears closely linked to how close you are with gay people. And a CNN/Opinion Research poll last year said 49% report having a family member or close friend who is gay. That’s up eight points from 1998 and up 17 points from 1992. Among those 65 and older, just one in three say that.
About two out of five Americans support legalizing pot — one in five among seniors and three in five among young adults. But the pot question, unlike the gay-marriage question, has been posed for decades. So the demographic trends are clearer: even in the Cheech and Chong-y ’70s, support for legalizing marijuana peaked at 30%. Today’s figures are, um, higher than ever — and the Pew figures are backed by a Gallup survey last fall in which 44% OK’d legalized toking. Medicinal marijuana enjoys 73% support.
Just about the only encouragement for cultural conservatives lately has been an uptick in the popularity of the term “pro-life.” A Gallup poll last fall found 51% calling themselves pro-life (before subsiding to 47% in the most recent survey). But there hasn’t been a surge in calling for the criminalization of abortion, or even for discarding Roe v. Wade (which could be nixed without any state making abortion illegal).
Polls over the years consistently show that about three-quarters think abortion should be legal at least sometimes, and three out of five support Roe. Even on this most fraught issue, morality and legality seem to be parting company. Palin, far from calling for a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion (Ronald Reagan’s official position, though he never did anything about it), simply thinks Roe should be overturned and each state should be free to make its own abortion policy. Her moral view — opposing abortion except to save the life of the mother — is strongly held, but she shows no sign of wanting to impose it on others. Perhaps she will turn out to be a libertarian in disguise: Alaska is the state with the second-highest libertarian presence (after Montana), according to a study by the Free State Project.
Democrats who have traditionally been spooked by social issues, and found themselves trying to change the subject when polls showed voters disagreeing with them on moral questions, must be relieved at the thought that Republicans will shortly no longer be able to broadcast fear over their 3G network — God, guns and gays. But the Democrats shouldn’t be so sure about that.
For starters, a move toward a more libertarian America actually helps the NRA. Pew regularly polls Americans to ask which they find more important: the right to own guns, or gun control? In 2000, the split was 29% on the pistol-packing side and 66% shunning firearms. This spring a Pew poll showed a tie — 46% on each side. Only about half of Americans even support banning assault weapons, down from three-quarters 20 years ago. Moreover, a Rasmussen poll this week found 48% today see government as a threat to individual rights.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that in both New Jersey and Massachusetts, old-guard liberals were recently replaced by Chris Christie and Scott Brown, libertarian-ish Republicans who are socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
Moreover, when we’ve heard the last Southern pol protest that God didn’t launch humanity with Adam & Steve (no, but if he had, the decor in the Garden of Eden would have been amazing), Republicans won’t be able to hide from their economic positions. Either they stake out a clear difference with Democrats on fiscal questions, or they become irrelevant, a party without an argument or a base.
You may have heard a word or two about the Tea Party, which is fiscally focused. But the accompanying demise of Reagan-era groups like the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority is just as important. The morality armies have failed to inspire their children to join the crusade.