In a traditional Christian society the clergy of the established or predominant church, and in a traditional Jewish society the rabinnate, had a well recognized social position of prestige and moral authority. They were not the rulers or owners, but their sacred learning made them the acknowledged experts on how everyone else should live.

Since the Enlightenment, secularized intellectuals have aspired to occupy that role, wield that authority, and enjoy the prestige that goes with it. In this country they began to contend for power in the 1820s, as the collapse of Calvinism in New England sent formerly religious impulses into abolitionism, feminism, prohibition and other movements of moral renewal.

Much of the Blue disdain and corresponding Red resentment is driven by the belief of the educated class in this country that their education has given them not merely more knowledge about how the world should work, but better moral values, and their anger and frustration over the refusal of the mass of the public to recognize and defer to their superiority.

jack_cerf:

Much of the Blue disdain and corresponding Red resentment is driven by the belief of the educated class in this country that their education has given them not merely more knowledge about how the world should work, but better moral values, and their anger and frustration over the refusal of the mass of the public to recognize and defer to their superiority.

Actually, I'm going to disagree here. My problem isn't that I think I have better moral values, it's that I KNOW that I use a textbook AND a bible when deciding things (metaphorically of course... I don't actually cross reference :) )

The problem is that red staters can't tell you, without referencing abstract "values", without mentioning the bible (keep in mind there is freedom of religion, so the bible should have no bearing on how the country is run), and without talking about how things have "always been" WHY gay people shouldn't marry for instance.

It's immoral? Why?

See, the problem is, I KNOW that the bible isn't a good reason for explaining why something is immoral. There are lots of morals in the bible we don't use anymore. Why did things change? Because times change.

Tradition, the bible, and old fashioned "values" aren't a good enough reason to leave things as is. What my education teaches me is to question everything, frequently, including if I am in fact right.

I'm a big proponent of "if it's not broke, don't fix it", but I believe we need to check if things are broken a lot more often than we do.

And I used gay marriage over abortion because while I fall on the left for both of those, I actually think the right has a point with abortion, even if I disagree with it.