Obama’s re-election leaves social conservatives feeling as if the earth trembled and shifted. Writing in the Weekly Standard , Christopher Caldwell explains why: Obama won as a values candidate. It’s just that his values are opposite those of religious conservatives.
When Obama “set out to pick a fight with the Catholic church over contraception,” it looked like a political flub, but Obama “understood that ‘reproductive rights’ are similar to ‘gun rights.’ Even if the number of people who care about protecting them is small, all of them vote on the issue.” Obama’s clarity on other social issues galvanized key constituencies. Caldwell writes, “Barack Obama has a core moral belief about abortion. It is that women should always be able to get one . . . . Obama has a core moral belief about gay marriage, too. He supports it.” Romney avoided the issues; and when he did address them, it was easy to make him out as a waffler.
Obama’s reelection was the coming out of a new Moral Majority.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
