What you are about to read is wrong.
What's happened in the past decade, Laycock says, is that the culture wars have become a zero sum game. When one side wins, the other loses.
"The conservative religious groups want to take away all the liberty of the pro-choice and gay-rights people, and the pro-choice and gay-rights people want to take away all the liberty of the conservative religious groups," he says. "Neither side seems interested in the American tradition of 'live and let live' and protect the liberty of both sides."
Still with this false-equivalency crap! When did dismissing every viewpoint equally become synonymous with critical thinking? "Oh, I don't take sides. They're all bad." Must be nice.
First off, there is no actual "culture war." Is it really a war if only one side is doing all the fighting? Especially if the bulk of said "fighting" is a bunch of loudmouths making pow-pow noises with their mouths?
Second, it's not a zero-sum exchange. One side wants to deny civil rights and legal medical procedures on religious grounds. The other side wants to keep them from doing that. That's not exactly the same thing. Hell, it's not even close to the same thing! If the pro-choice and gay-rights people get their way, no one loses anything, because there's no "liberty" to be protected in bigotry and discrimination. But if the conservative religious groups had their way, Americans would be far less free.
Conflating the two sides is like saying liberals are hypocrites because they don't tolerate intolerance — as if being inclusive of diverse viewpoints means you have to embrace hatred. "Live and let live" doesn't mean, "live and do nothing about injustice."
False comparisons such as Laycock's make me mad because they trivialize a very real issue. Not to mention liberty itself. No one side is all right or all wrong, but they are different. And in this case at least, one's far better than the other.
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