Godless liberal sickos win again CommentsComments(1)Comments(95) | E-mail| PrintYour old-world grandmother will refuse to
believe it. Your Southern cousin will likely shake his head like he’s throwing off lice, completely
unwilling to process. Rick Santorum will, with any luck and God’s good graces, spontaneously
combust. And of course, the NRA will shudder and reload in a panic because, honey, they’re
afraid of everything.
It does not matter. Let the reactions come, the paranoia ensue, the bitter ashes of past injustices
dissipate into the wind. For lo, a raft of hard-fought – and fairly radical – cultural changes hath
finally come, and the changes are good and the changes are righteous and the changes, as MLK
knew and your Republican friends are loathe to admit, are toward the progressive and the just.
You know, just like always.
Perhaps you’ve heard? Perhaps you’ve noticed? The infamous “culture wars” officially declared in
the Reagan era and then hissed forth through the years by everyone from George W. Bush to
Rick Warren, the Tea Party to groupthink megachurches, Rush Limbaugh’s giant mouth to Bill
O’Reilly’s sad little book, Palin and Bachmann and Karl Rove, too, all ultimately landing with an
inglorious splat on poor Rick “please don’t Google my last name” Santorum’s head, the culture
wars of yore are essentially over.
And the Republicans lost.
The culture wars! What a silly idea. What a ridiculous and lopsided fight. All about gay marriage,
women’s rights, pornography, censorship, “elitist” higher education, support for the arts, for
science, immigration, the environment, legal marijuana, gays in the military, a black president,
self-determined spirituality versus the deep poison that is organized religion.
The culture wars! Been around for ages, but most recently determined to mean constricted, God-
fearing, red state “family values” versus “immoral” ‘60-style open-mindedness, all spinning off the
timeless argument that the moral fabric of this great nation would surely be shredded to bits if too
many Americans were allowed to have a free abortion after enjoying joyful sodomy in church with
their college-educated gay husband’s blasphemous public sculpture that looks like a freedom-
loving handgun shaped like a recreational vagina. Or something.
Gay soldiers and women in combat? What’s next, a black president? Oh wait.Evidence of the
GOP’s glorious, ongoing loss? Everywhere and palpable. Gay marriage, to the vast majority of the
nation and certainly to nearly everyone under 30, is a foregone and no-big-deal conclusion. Gays
are now allowed to serve openly in the military and attend military academies (though not, of
course, in the NFL), and now we hear that women have just been given the OK to serve in
combat, too, which of course means we are all doomed – because as everyone knows, women
are too weak and easy to rape, and gays just want to have sex with the enemy.
But never mind that now, because even the numbly prejudiced Boy Scouts are, at the behest of at
least a few very powerful, wealthy donors/members, reconsidering their hateful ban on gays. Can
you hear that? It’s the avidly bigoted South, losing cultural traction by the second.
Would you look at immigration reform? Suddenly back on the table like a Frankenstein monster
getting struck by a miracle bolt of lightning, all due to the fact that the GOP just realized if they
don’t try to make nice with the new multicultural majority that spanked them so hard in the 2012
election, they’ll vanish faster than an ice shelf in Greenland.
On it goes. From environmental awareness to legal pot to abortion rights, movement is toward the
progressive – or at the very least, away from the regressive (not quite the same thing, but in this
climate, you take what you can get). Even many leading Republicans don’t want to discuss the
classic cultural issues that defined them for so long, recognizing them as toxic to their future,
realizing that the younger generations simply don’t believe in the harsh institutions and repressive
dogmas of yore.
They know the nation has changed. Immigrants and women dominate anew, rural values are
metamorphosing, gay culture is here to stay, the gun debate is back in play thanks to far too many
dead children, the church is sour and impotent, you don’t f–k with Planned Parenthood, the arts
are still thriving (well mostly), sexuality is more unfettered and experimental, for better and worse.
Do not misunderstand. It is far from a complete or perfect victory. Many battles remain, many ugly
shards will slice at the veins of the culture for years to come.
Women may be succeeding like never before, but many steadfastly backwards states (hi,
Mississippi) and even US congressmen are so antagonistic to women’s rights they might as well
be Saudi Arabia. Gays may be gaining in every category, but hate crimes persist and the church’s
nasty homophobia is more entrenched than the Vatican’s secret fetish dungeon.
27 of the Boy Scouts in this picture are totally gay. Can you find them?While the Catholic church
has lost nearly all sway over American social mores (praise Jesus), its stranglehold on the
uneducated third world is as oppressive and misogynistic as any time in 500 years. Backwards,
anti-science thought persists throughout huge chunks of America. Even Marco Rubio, Florida’s
hotshot Republican and one of the “Gang of Eight” who designed the new, bipartisan immigration
reform proposal, recently mouthed various idiocies about evolution and the “real” age of the Earth.
You stay intellectual, Florida.
Oh, and the reason the younger generation care so much about the environment? It’s not
because they’re all liberal tree huggers. It’s because they have no choice; to this very day, no
major nation has taken significant steps to prevent global warming and the ensuing catastrophe.
Climate change is here. Mother Nature is furious. The culture war over the environment is insipid
and irrelevant, blasted away by extreme hurricanes and death.
And of course, the South, despite flickers of progress in various college towns, remains as racist,
anti-smarts, and gun-lovingly homophobic as ever. The good news? This used to be a problem.
The South used to have enormous influence on culture and politics, acting as the genteel, racist
heart of “real” America. But as the new rainbow constituency takes hold and a calm, intellectual
black man enters his second term as president, that influence is waning; the South is now more
isolated, emasculated, increasingly meaningless in the new America dialogue. This much we
know: The South will not rise again. Ever. Praise.
The larger truism remains: The culture wars are mostly over, and the GOP largely lost. And
continues to lose. And in the grand scheme, always will. Why? Because younger generations
always lean away from the more oppressive ideas of their elders. Because civil rights are always
in humanity’s best interest. Because it’s never been about godless self-indulgence and liberal
hedonism defeating hard work and respectful restraint. It’s far more about intellect, love, and
shared humanity defeating a beloved trio of conservative American demons: constriction,
paranoia, and fear.
MLK put it best: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Which we
might amend as: The arc of human evolution is gorgeous and messy and strange, and it bends
toward love, expansion, barely controlled chaos and continuously exploding everything you
thought you knew. Don’t tell your grandma.
