. For a few decades we had knockdown, drag-out fights about how the sexual revolution was going to shake out, but now it’s sort of a done deal.
We’ve reached a national consensus.
People in the educated class talk like social progressives and behave like traditionalists. People in the less educated classes talk like social conservatives and behave like libertines. Nearly everybody is cool with things like contraception. Most people want to restrict abortion without making it impossible and we’re kind of exhausted by the fight that never goes anywhere.
To me the thing that took the stuffing out of the culture wars is that the social fabric began to repair. Teenage pregnancy rates are down. Abortion rates are down. Crime is down. There are problems with the social fabric but they no longer have to do with the sexual revolution.
When Rick Santorum talks about this stuff in the way he does, it’s theology, not sociology. And believe me, there are very few Americans who are strongly theological, even the ones who attend services every week. ~ David Brooks
Who Decided That This Election Should Be About Sex? - NYTimes.com