Social Issues Won’t Save Us

Rick Santorum

For those who haven’t been paying attention to all the attention given to uteruses for the past two weeks, it’s 1965 again. The latest birth control debate and the most recent Santorum surge in the GOP nomination contest shed light on a worrying trend in American politics.

The debate on social issues–birth control, gay marriage, abortion, etc. has been framed by the media and politicians as a battle between good and evil. The right is especially guilty of this. Rick Santorum (whom I will criticize throughout this post because he is the most visible of anyone discussing these issues) is well known for his inflammatory remarks. Santorum recently linked the moral failings on Wall Street that led to the financial crisis to the “immorality” of the gay marriage debate. This type of rhetoric, however genuine the beliefs of its speakers, only serves to polarize the public and distract voters from the real issues.

You wouldn’t know it from the way people like Rick Santorum talk, but the most crucial issues facing our nation are not social, but economic: bringing unemployment down to an acceptable rate, ensuring that social programs are sustainable for future generations, and coping with increased economic pressure from rising nations. These are the issues that will define our generation.

Rick Santorum
This guy is not helping anything. | Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.

If the public and our elected officials continue to focus on who should or should not have to provide birth control, we will not be able to decide how to deal with the changing world around us. While Congressmen waste time condemning fake Abortionplexes, the issues of how to revive a shrinking middle class and engage an ever more interconnected global economy go unaddressed.

That’s not to say social issues aren’t important. To be fair, there is an economic component that Rick Santorum has made a point to address along the campaign trail as the economy remains the number one issue on voters’ minds. The former Pennsylvania Senator notes, “you want to look at the poverty rate among families that have two — that have a husband and wife working in them? It’s 5 percent today. A family that’s headed by one person? It’s 30 percent today.” And, as conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat pointed out in his Sunday column, “both Democrats and Republicans generally agree that the country would be better off with fewer pregnant teenagers, fewer unwanted children, fewer absent fathers, fewer out-of-wedlock births.”

Social conservatives deserve praise for feeling the need to address these problems and bringing them into the public sphere. My criticism of the left on social issues is that they haven’t truly accepted that these are real problems and write off critiques of modern society by the right as out-of-touch, religious zealotry.

It is fairly well agreed upon that children born into a stable, two-parent home enjoy certain advantages over those who are not. And if legal and widespread access to abortion and birth control negatively affects that chance by creating incentives to act irresponsibly, that’s a discussion that should be had. But, this framing of social issues–as some sort of battle between angels and demons, and of gays and pro-choice advocates as minions of Satan–poses an impediment to ever having a reasonable discussion of the economic and societal impact of social issues themselves.

From a purely practical, non-political standpoint, do social conservatives really believe that limiting access to birth control will lead to less “immoral” sex? Would banning abortions stop women from getting them? Conservative views on these issues, however well intentioned they might be, do not mesh well with modern reality. As college students, it is hardly a stretch to argue that our culture has developed some unhealthy attitudes towards sex. But conservatives’ prescriptions to these issues take a black-and-white approach and seek to bring us backwards instead of adapting to changes deeply embedded in our culture.

Although many leaders may be sincere in their conservative beliefs on social issues, they have undoubtedly become a wedge for political gain. The establishment of religious voters in the Republican base, aided by the rise of the Moral Majority during the Reagan administration, ensured that social issues would stay politicized. Since then, people have been duped into voting against their economic interests for fear of militant secularists–or, on the other side, religious fundamentalists imposing their will on society.

With the economy gaining ground the past few months and President Obama’s re-election prospects improving, it should be no surprise to anyone that social issues have entered the media cycle again. If the GOP can no longer convince voters that the President’s economic policy was a failure, then they’ll simply try to scare the electorate into voting Republican by telling them that the President is “crushing” faith in America. I don’t expect these issues to go away, but I hope our leaders and citizens seek to address them with perspective and in a reasonable manner.

About Ian Moskowitz

Ian is a senior in CAS studying political science.

View all posts by Ian Moskowitz →

3 Comments on “Social Issues Won’t Save Us”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *