Is Divorce The Next Front In The Culture War?
When someone says the term “Culture War,” the first issues that usually come to mind are access to abortion or same-sex marriage. These are two of the most well-known ‘social issues’ in American religion and politics over the last several decades.
Interestingly, both areas have seen a lot of newsworthy events in recent years - the Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson essentially gave states the power to regulate abortion access and Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states.
However, there are a number of secondary issues in the culture war that don’t come up as much — like marijuana legalization or regulation of pornography. There are certainly some dust ups about both from time to time but they don’t grab headlines like abortion or gay marriage.
However there’s another issue that is starting to creep into the mainstream discourse — divorce.
For instance, NPR ran a story last year with the headline, “Conservatives in red states turn their attention to ending no-fault divorce laws.” So, there is certainly some effort among religious and political cultural warriors to rethink how divorces are granted in the United States.
The General Social Survey (which is hosted on the ARDA) has been asking a question about divorce since 1974: “Should divorce in this country be easier or more difficult to obtain than it is now?”
It’s a perfect window into how Americans have been thinking about the topic over the last several decades and whether those views are shifting.
You can read the rest of Ryan Burge’s post at his Substack channel.
Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.