What Red and Blue States? - The NYTimes "Week in Review" featured an article which discusses the recent work of sociologists debunking the "myth" of a massive cultural divide in American life. (Stanford and Princeton researchers figure prominently.) For example, studies apparently show "increasing agreement between churchgoing evangelicals and mainline Protestants, even on abortion, and the lack of increasing polarization between African-Americans and whites."

However, our political leadership in Washington is far more polarized than are the denizens of Main Street. According to the theory, the culture war is largely an afflication of the chattering classes and, because of defects in our electoral processes, both parties tend to nominate representatives and leaders who have also caught the bug. As a result, Americans aren't even given the option to elect the centrist candidates we would prefer. As one book puts it, we're like those "unfortunate citizens of some third-world countries who try to stay out of the cross-fire while Maoist guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other."

While the culture war may be "mostly wishful thinking and useful fund-raising strategies" on the part of the intelligentsia, "abetted by a media driven by the need to make the dull and everyday appear exciting and unprecedented," at least one sociologist has called gay rights "the great exception" that actually does divide Americans. (Consider this item on the "geography of gay marriage" from the Washington Post.) But some would question even this truism. Earlier prognostications about the gay marriage issue being a significant factor in November's election do not appear to be panning out. As the Times notes, opinion on gay marriage has fluctuated over the past year with the long-term trend being toward greater tolerance, especially among young voters, suggesting that the trend will continue.

The article concludes with the observation that "Gay rights could prove to be the issue that ends the culture war. If gay marriage does not become a polarizing issue in 2004 - and it does not look like it will - there are no wedge issues left."