The social issues

Even under the Christian-Right-dominated Bush administration, America as a society continues to inch forward:

The same results have showed up even in opinions about social issues. The average annual percentage of those believing abortion should be illegal dropped from 19 percent in 2004 to 15 percent in 2006, and the percentage believing it should be legal in "all circumstances" rose from 24 percent to 30 percent. Indeed, the outburst of religiosity that began a decade ago and sustained the Republican Party in the South and the prairie states seems to be abating. A 2007 study from the Pew Research Center reports "a reversal of the increased religiosity observed in the mid-1990s," along with greater tolerance among white evangelical Protestants toward homosexuals and working women. The Pew study finds, for instance, that among white evangelical Protestants, the percentage of those who completely disagree that "women should return to their traditional roles" has risen from 28 percent in 1997 to 42 percent today. That spells trouble for a conservative Republicanism rooted in religious conservatism.

The article this came from, which is long and deals mostly with the prospects of the Democratic party, is here. Also of interest are these new Newsweek poll results, which show any one of the three major Democratic Presidential contenders (Clinton, Obama, or Edwards) defeating any one of the four major Republicans (Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, or Romney) in a head-to-head general election match-up, with or without Bloomberg in the race. One shouldn't read too much into polls this far in advance of the election, but it does show the way things are shifting at the moment.