According to the publications Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture and Value War: Public Opinion and the Politics of Gay Rights, it was the controversial lesbian outing of the main character (played by Ellen DeGeneres) in the sitcom Ellen in 1997 that paved the way for Patty's coming-out in this episode, as well as for many other gay characters on other television shows.
To make criticism of the Bible the central element in the values wars would thus be political suicide for liberals.
They recast him in their image on civil rights, and bent and twisted his oft times public religious Puritanism on morals issues to justify GOP positions in the values wars that they wage with blacks, Democrats and liberals.
Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles, Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels and the novel White Nights, Black Paradise.
To some extent it's a values war.
People laughed at his Murphy Brown speech, but it was the first shot in the family-values war.
The Bush policy on Saddam Hussein and Iraq seems to be: war for any justification; war at any opportunity; war with any financial cost; war at any national security price; war against any moral or religious values; war against any international and democratic opposition; war with allies or without.
Organizing involved not only work on bread and butter issues like housing, jobs and school reform but also a "values war" against forces such as hyper-individualism, consumerism, and instant gratification in the toxic mass culture that were undermining the American civic tradition.
From the Middle Ages into the 20th century, cavalry had dominated battlefields, but from as early as the American Civil War, their value in war was declining as artillery became more powerful, reducing the effectiveness of shock charges.
