Moral Issues

"Many believe that religious and partisan identities undergird American public opinion on so-called culture wars issues. However, when it comes to abortion and gay rights, the reverse may be closer to the truth. Drawing on wide-ranging evidence, Paul Goren and Christopher Chapp show that views on abortion and gay rights are just as durable--and sometimes more durable--than political and religious identities. Their strength stems from their grounding in automatic, visceral emotions that media have primed since the late 1980s. Attitudes toward these moralized issues predict and can sometimes even disrupt religious and partisan identities. Indeed, over the last thirty years, they have accelerated the rise of the religious "nones" and moral sorting into Democratic and Republican parties"--