The study (.pdf) on
which John Avlon hangs his latest
call for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican
Party is impressive in many ways. But its index of social
conservatism is a bit shoddy and likely to exclude a high
percentage of educated people. By this index, I only
unambiguously count as a social conservative according to one
statement -- "I have old-fashioned values about family and
marriage" -- and could maybe stretch to agree with at most one
other: "Clear guidelines about what's good or evil apply to
everyone regardless of their situation."
I don't broadly speaking think we should "ban books that contain
dangerous ideas" or send women back to the kitchen. The latter is
a particularly antiquated definition of social conservatism,
given that the candidate who most excited social conservatives in
2008 was a working mother whose teenaged daughter had a baby out
of wedlock. As for school boards being allowed to fire teachers
who are known to be gay, Ronald Reagan opposed a ballot
initiative that would esssentially have done just that -- in
1978. Was he not a social conservative?
Now, I don't dispute that younger and independent voters skew to
the left of other voters -- and my own views -- on a number of
salient questions, including same-sex marriage. But the Pew study
offers a cariacture of social conservatism that is especially
unlikely to find many takers among these groups.
UPDATE: I have my own
thoughts on the state of social conservatism in today's
Politico.
