Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot by dismissing concerns about media vulgarity, charges Dan Gerstein in Why the Democrats Are Losing the Culture Wars, from Monday's Wall Street Journal (alas, apparently only available to WSJ Online subscribers).
Gerstein, former communications director for Joe Lieberman, takes aim at New York Times columnist Frank Rich, who recently railed against "New Puritans" who want to "stamp out" all that is "joyously vulgar" in American culture."
Counters Gerstein, "vulgarity, joyous or otherwise, is hardly in
retreat." Moreover:
[T]he implications of this mindset and the battle lines it establishes are clear.... [I]f you're not exactly enamored of watching titillating stunts and ads at the Super Bowl with your six--year-old, you're part of the TV Taliban.
But:
Not all parents who are concerned about the avalanche of crud crushing their children every day are obsessed with SpongeBob's sexual orientation. Nor are they seeking to shred the First Amendment.
And he points to what he calls "the nub of the values problem
for Democrats today":
We don't hesitate to judge people's beliefs, but we blanch at judging their behavior. That leaves us silent on big moral issues at a time of great moral uncertainty, and leaves the impression that we are the party of "anything goes." Even worse, it creates a "values vacuum" that gets filled by the SpongeBob gaybashers of the world.
The result, says Gerstein, is that "heartland residents are
tuning out our party." I think that's on target. Too often gays,
"progressives," and (especially) progressive gays dismiss all
concerns about morality and values as motivated by intolerance.
That merely results in ceding the values mantle to those who really
are motivated by anti-gay animus.
--Stephen H. Miller