I AGREE WITH THIS GRIM ASSESSMENT, AND HAVE FOR SOME TIME. WE ARE ALREADY FIGHTING ANOTHER CIVIL WAR—ALL BUT THE SHOOTING. Short of Another Great Awakening, America May Split Up … Or Worse

Is there a truce possible between two halves of the country, when each side thinks the other so morally depraved they’re a threat to innocent kids, even their own? It’s not about having different religions. For 200 years we took our kids to church or not, or to synagogues, and agreed to differ. That’s how a healthy, pluralist society works. It’s about not wanting any form of sharia (Muslim or Catholic or Darwinist) that imposes blind faith in its creed as a precondition for full American citizenship, including parental rights.

But the men who founded our country, and governed it till around 1960, used to agree on basic truths of natural law, knowable by reason. They agreed that a basic, tolerant Christianity with its mores anchored our view of the common good. They agreed that unborn life is sacred, marriage is between one man and one woman, and homosexuality is an unfortunate aberration: at worst a deadly sin, at best a heavy cross. Certainly nothing comparable to a person’s race or religion, which we must respect. They agreed that children’s innocence ought to be protected, and parents’ rights deferred to — except in really extreme cases of physical or sexual abuse.