"Moral" Values?

Monday morning, Al Franken made a point heard muttered frequently around The Thinking Woman since Wednesday. (Context: Rush Limbaugh -- who as we know is a saint -- claims that the Democrats want to eliminate any morality whatsoever from the world.)

Just about every issue in the election was a moral issue. The war in Iraq, Social Security security, etc., are all moral issues. In fact, we at the Thinking Woman think that everyone who voted voted on moral values, because our moral compass influences our attitude toward many issues addressed by the government.

So the question is not one of morality, but of how much the government has a right, constitutionally, to impose one set of moral values on a whole nation.

In an article in The Slate, Paul Freedman, associate professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, argues that that what really drove people to vote for Bush was terrorism, not "moral values" (defined primarily as attitudes toward gay marriage and abortion). We think he has a point. Read it for yourself, and see if you agree:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109275/