America as "the land of the free and the home of the brave" is not just a snippet of lyrics from our National Anthem, it is an axiom. A free people must be very brave because freedom isn't free and must be continuously protected and defended against the forces of tyranny, especially those within their own ranks.
We must have a lot of courage (and prudence and temperance) to resist the unavoidable temptations that come with our liberty because the maintenance of order in a free society requires that every citizen voluntarily practice personal responsibility without the benefit of an Earthly system of punishment and reward designed to restrict free will and conscience beyond the prosecution of crimes that violate civil and human rights.
Freedom is a frightening prospect for people who lack the fortitude to resist temptations of the flesh and therefore have little to no faith in their fellow Americans' ability to do the same. So they become "culture warriors" and fight for the preservation and expansion of oppressive laws that are intended to curtail temptation by placing limits upon free will and conscience.
A Contest Between Freedom and Tyranny
Cultural uniformity cannot be made essential to unity in our free and pluralistic society without defeating the principle of liberty and justice for all. American culture is a collective hodgepodge of many other world cultures and far too diverse to ever take any sort of homogenized form in which our country could remain free. We are obliged to exercise tolerance with regard to our cultural, religious and other differences in deference to the one commonality that binds us all together as Americans, our Constitution and the civil and human rights enumerated therein.
The "culture war" is not about Christians versus non-Christians or believers versus non-believers. Nor is it about the partisan battles between political parties and the various camps of esoteric liberals and ambiguous conservatives. It is not a question of whether America is a democracy or a theocracy (it's neither, actually). And although some self-proclaimed culture warriors sincerely believe that it is their mission, it is not about the saved working furiously to convert the sinners before the Rapture.
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