Prophets and politics. "The Mormon Church works to ban gay marriage in California, even as gay people in places like Rexburg, Idaho, come out of the LDS closet."
posted by homunculus on Oct 23, 2008 - 87 comments

It's been a rough first two years for new William and Mary president Gene Nichol. First, he reluctantly let go of a beloved logo. Then, he removed a cross from a chapel in America's oldest academic building. Some students and alumni revolted. One threatened to sue, others withheld donations. Nichol backtracked slightly, but to no avail. Outsiders weighed in. Dinesh D'Souza (previously on MeFi) came to campus to debate. Some students support Nichol and are tired of outside attacks. Maybe it wasn't the best timing for W&M to host the Sex Workers Art Show: conservatives are pissed.
posted by naoko on Feb 18, 2007 - 48 comments

What Good Are the Arts? asks John Carey’s recent book of the same name. The New Criterion think Carey’s thesis is informed by cynical political motives rather than earnest convictions, and accuses Carey of dabbling in the risky art of aesthetic relativism: Obviously, art is ultimately about “the search for truth” (a lesson we’d do well to remember before society falls apart). But as Carey and others point out to the contrary, the Third Reich was all about art—and yet, art under the Third Reich had precious little to do with “searching for truth.” So just what good are the arts? Here’s what a few others have to say on the subject.
posted by saulgoodman on Oct 4, 2006 - 45 comments

A new kind of hate has come to Provincetown. The victims? Not who you'd think. "Police say they logged numerous complaints of straight people being called ``breeders" by gays over the July Fourth holiday weekend." People call the police over this kind of thing?
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus on Jul 14, 2006 - 151 comments

Liberal conspiracy to take away school children's right to sing cherished Christmas song... ...Or simple misunderstanding? Another hard-hitting battlefield report from the frontlines of the Culture Wars, from the same stalwart news organization who brought us John Stossel's seminal treatise on the hidden virtues of greed. (Yes, both links are to a mainstream news outlet, but this story's an exclusive, so there aren't any alternatives.)
posted by all-seeing eye dog on Dec 9, 2005 - 42 comments

Sometimes, we type what we really think.
posted by mmahaffie on Mar 17, 2005 - 33 comments

You will be conquered by Stealth and Deception : in the swift advance of a long-planned coup against secular society, to launch an American theocracy, "the Dominionists are succeeding in their quest for national control and world power" - Kathleen Yurica, founder of the Yurica Report which, like Theocracy Watch, monitors the American religious right writes "Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it....First the hard right dominionists took over the Southern Baptist Convention with its 16 million members and a fortune in corporate businesses. Then they took over the Republican Party...they are moving to limit the power of the Supreme Court. Now there is evidence dominionists are trying to take over the U. S. military

....Americans and the mainstream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war — a war that is cultural, religious and political, a war that uses stealth and deception and the rules of engagement written by the enemies to representative democracy. Unless Americans wake up, we could lose that war."
posted by troutfishing on Oct 14, 2004 - 75 comments

NASCAR Ballet See also: Jerry Springer, the Opera. It's like we can hardly even count on high culture and low culture being separate anymore. If only there had been some way to see this coming.
posted by rusty on Apr 9, 2004 - 11 comments

France wants you secular. Malaysia wants you circumcized.
posted by jfuller on Dec 17, 2003 - 12 comments

A really good reality show for gay people would be five gay men dying of AIDS. Changing the channel has gotten so much easier since the invention of the remote control. Who doesn't love free speech?
posted by archimago on Sep 11, 2003 - 70 comments

Jon Carroll has a few ideas on the Culture War in this SFGate article from June. He's right, of course.
posted by tdecius on Sep 16, 1999 - 0 comments