Re-thinking the Politics of the Family: Part II

It's not yet clear how big a role the "moral values" issue played in the outcome of the election; it seems to have been less decisive than first reports indicated. And war and terror may have come to G.W. Bush' s political rescue, as September 11 did before. Nevertheless, it does seem clear that liberals and progressives have not done a good job in presenting our own ideas in a framework of values or challenging the right's narrow version of morality, which seems to stop at the bedroom door. Nor have we exploited the right's own vulnerability: the contradiction between its family values rhetoric and its economic and social policies.