"And why is is that the left talks derisively about inclusion of social issues in politics from the right but fails to recognize its own political efforts to tear down the same planks? Both sides use social issues in politics, but neither side recognizes its own culpability."

With respect to the left being culpable of using social issues when they tear down planks containing social issues formed by the right:

It's as if the clown with the shovel following the Sheriff's Posse shares a responsibility for the horseshit.

It's very true that Jerry Falwell was not without precedent moving subjects of his sermons from the pulpit, where they belong, into the political process where they don't. In my focus on the birth of part of what clogs up congress today, I neglected to mention that.

I agree Falwell was reacting to what he and others saw as excesses of a permissive culture, especially the sexual freedom that in my opinion played a significant role in the right's heightened abortion worry. Abstinence and sex education became part of the strategy to prevent both.

By the way, I make a distinction between social issues dealing with human rights and those dealing with human behavior, as I guess most on this board do.