Culture wars

Culture wars are an issue in American conservatism and American politics in general.

National sovereignty

Many groups feel that the American culture is endangered by the encroachment of international bodies on national sovereignty. Even though there may be no means of enforcement, on U.S. territory, of the treaty, the very fact of ratification suggests

Concerned Women for America (CWA), as one example, is alarmed by ratification of international treaties or the consideration, by courts, of international law, on the theory that such ratification or consideration would override the U.S. Constitution. They strongly opposed the nomination of Harold Koh as Legal Adviser to the U.S. State Department, who indeed does believe in consideration of international law. CWA's positions, however, seem to equate advice and interpretation with transferring authority to the United Nations — which has no enforcement mechanism beyond those agreed-to by its sovereign member states. In the Korean War and Gulf War, there were UN resolutions supporting military action, but the forces remained under national command.

Family issues

A matter of particular concern to CWA is the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to T. Jeremy Gunn, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, and a Senior Fellow in Religion and Human Rights at Emory University School of Law, sees the opposition by CWA and others as not about human rights or constitutional law per se, but

a cultural war over the perceived role of parents. While we can question the

excessiveness of their rhetoric and the inconsistencies of their arguments, it is important also to try to identify the underlying values that prompt their war metaphors and battle imagery...First, they have in mind what we might call an “idealized, conventional family” that leads them to ignore almost completely the plight of children who do not fit within this traditional family. Second, there appears to be an underlying fear that if children are allowed rights of expression and access to information, that they, as parents, will lose their children. They thus approach the question not from the perspective of the world as it comes to vulnerable children, but as parents who are attempting to shore up an image of an idealized, conventional family where two heterosexual parents are raising children in conformity with the parental ideals of religion and right behavior. The CRC opponents are unconcerned that, for vast numbers of children in the world, the problem is not the threat that the United Nations will interfere in the relationship between

parent and child, but that children do"

Paleoconservatism

Much of paleoconservatism is waged in culture wars. Traditional values are to be respected even if not politically correct. For example, the Confederate flag and southern traditions are seen as racist by others, but a legitimate part of American history by many paleoconservatives such as Sam Francis. Racist and White nationalist groups, confusingly, may adopt that same flag, but for different reasons. Paleoconservatives often oppose immigration, especially from other than Europe, but are not inherently racist.

They do tend to be Christian and object to such things as the "War on Christmas", but their emphasis is on preserving the culture rather than introducing morality.