Father Jake, in this article for the shared blog that he contributes to, pointed me to this article by Doug Muder of uuworld.org, which in turn referenced this book by James Ault.

OK, now that I've linked all over the net, let me say what some of this is about, in case you don't want to read the other citations.

Ault's book talks about life in a fundamentalist church. Muder uses that to comment about the differences between the world views of the conservatives and the liberals. The primary distinction Muder draws is that the conservative view of the world is based on the idea that people have obligations which they need to live up to, while liberals focus more on being able to choose which commitments they make in their lives. (Jake presents a brief summary of Muder's article, but that's how I found the rest of this stuff, so credit where credit is due and all that.) It is the liberal preference for choosing their commitments instead of accepting societal obligations that makes the conservatives feel threatened by "the liberal agenda."

It is this idea that the conservatives felt threatened which has always confused me. How can conservatives argue that a gay marriage between people that they (the conservatives) don't even know threatens them? It made no sense to me. However, Muder points out that if people come to feel that they can shed obligations which they never wanted, then that would undermine the conservative position of expecting people to fit into roles that are placed on them.

In turn, the conservatives see the liberal idea of being free to choose different things in life rather than accepting the obligations conservatives expect them to shoulder as being completely frivolous. They feel that if people can choose to leave their obligations behind then it will undermine the social order. What they miss is that the things liberals choose are not simply frivolous choices but life commitments. It is not that liberals are unwilling to make commitments, it is that they want the right to choose the commitments they make. Studies of conservative families show that despite rallying cries of "family values," conservatives are just as likely to have divorces, experience spousal abuse, and have other family problems as any other demographic group in the US. As a liberal, I hope that making commitments I choose instead of feeling trapped into obligations I didn't choose will allow me to keep those commitments without feeling resentment. This seems like a good thing to me.

I think the other articles cover all of these points better than I have here, but I wanted to go ahead and get this posted as it has been sitting here unfinished for several days.