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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 11, 2004 Our View Be ready to enter the moral value fray The blues lost and it wasn't in overtime. Fine. But who has a clue what the reds mean when they leave a polling place and declare that the most important issue for them when marking their ballots was "moral values." Not the war in Iraq and its loss of life and its $200 billion-plus invoice. Not the staggering deficit. Or the implications of the Patriot Act. And not the fact that our borders leak like sieves and our ports go 95 percent uninspected. Nope. It's "moral values." So what is meant by "moral values?" Is this code for advocating a Constitutional amendment that will once and for all ban gay marriage? Is it red state speak or wanting the ten commandments in the lobbies of federal buildings? A desire to block all stem cell research? The hope that abortion will once again become illegal in America and that the Supreme Court will be reconfigured to assure same? Is this Nascar Nation and Mel Gibson against Michael Moore and Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction - which was declared by the noted columnist William Safire to have been the most important "social-polictical event of past years"? Have the red states declared war on popular culture, getting their collective backs up, buoyed by the popular vote and their new "mandate," hence challenging, "Bring it on"? Is this a tectonic shift in the country to the right, a stunning swing of the pendulum where family values and the defense of marriage and sound moral principles will trump that ultimate harbinger of coarseness: Hollywood? We think not. "Moral values" are being shaped by a thousand different factors, the entertainment industry being only one. Pop culture knows no state boundaries and is a juggernaut carried to every village and burg in the union. The red states go to R rated movies just like the blues. They listen to hip hop, aren't fazed by Cialis or Viagra commercials, live together before marriage, and know in their devout hearts that a constitutional amendment will never pass banning gay marriage. And hopefully the country will soon follow the example of California and place good science before ideology when it comes to research that might alleviate debilitating diseases. What we hope for is an elevation in the national discourse. A wish that campaigns will not shy away from the complexities of issues or find refuge in mendacity. There was a lot of dissembling going on from the reds and the blues and the electorate, in the end, was not well served. America, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, has got a lot of "'splaining to do." To ourselves and to the world. To do so, we have to get past the notion that "moral values" are more important than, say, poverty or the environment or an ongoing, depleting war. Moral values are something important to us, but blues have allowed the reds to define it for far too long. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Slippers Isotoner Slippers Dsw Shoes Ceramic Piggy Banks Fanny Mae Eloans Calenders 2005 Calender 2005 Accelerate Weight Loss Programs Citibank Student Loans Acs Loan Matchmaking & Dating Scripts Adventure Travel Conference Calls - $50/Month Security Systems student loan consolidation helzberg diamonds Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams