The Politics of Vice and Virtue: Sex Panics, Faith-Based Activism and the Secularization of Sin.

摘要

Traced back to its foundation in colonial New England, American morality policy was designed to regulate moral behavior, reinforce Christian values and punish those who challenged the dominant hegemony. Many of those earliest laws specifically targeted illicit sexual expression and obscenity: the focal point of this dissertation. American morality policy has been expanding for the last three centuries, due in large part to the reform efforts of faith-based activists who have continued to carry the Puritan's torch. In this dissertation, I investigate the strategic evolution of faith-based activism and also the expansion of morality policy, which developed in response to one another. I argue that evangelical activists have achieved many of their legislative goals through the application of a two-fold strategic repertoire that is both repetitive and innovative.;By examining three case studies, the masturbation panic of the mid-nineteenth century, the white slavery panic of the early twentieth century, and the present-day "culture war," I reveal a historical pattern in which activists, operating within or supported by faith-based organizations, manufacture and/or capitalize on moral panics as a strategy to mobilize support, shape discourse and legitimate their claims. I also investigate how activists maneuver to achieve their policy objectives. I trace their successes and failures, showing how activists have been forced to make tactical shifts, transitioning from federal to local solutions and moving away from faith-based arguments to secular legal strategies as a result of constitutional challenges and increased secularism and sexual liberalism in modern American society and the courts.;I argue that conservative faith-based activists have become increasingly skilled with regard to how they deploy panic as a rhetorical tool, frame their claims, and adapt their legal arguments in reaction to court challenges and mounting resistance. Strategic innovation has made it possible for faith-based activists to remain influential in the political sphere. With every success, precedents with long-lasting consequences are established, state power is extended and faith-based values are institutionalized; ultimately, legitimating the values of a well-connected minority over the majority.