Islamic nations, the Catholic Church and Protestant fundamentalists on the same side in the matters of science and society, modernity and secularism.
It may surprise many that hardline communists were also hardline social conservatives on the matters of family and sexuality. It is the nature of extremism to incorporate far out views on these matters into state policy. The answers to this perverse mix of despotism and family values lies in the natures of religion and nationalism. It is not about left versus right because social conservatism can be found in both as tools of the state. Social conservatism, both religious and secular, when wed to nationalism and embraced as state policy, has almost always turned into an enemy of tolerance and liberty. In fact, social conservatives in the USA, led by Christian conservatives, have fought or disagreed with religious diversity, religious equality, abolition of slavery, Suffrage, desegregation, integrating the armed forces, Brown v Board of Education, mixed race marriages, respect and equality for Jews #not in MY country club!#, the Civil Rights Act of 1965, gender equality laws, women in authority, working women, reproductive education, family planning, contraception, condoms, gay rights and a host of others. It was humanists, both religious and secular that banded together to win the rights movements of the past. Such is the case presently with regards to gay, lesbian and family planning rights.
As James Veverka points out specifically in relation to Soviet Communism's and fascisms's presecution of homosexuals, both political systems:
are the moral crusaders to save the family in a nation that is supposedly threatened by decadence.... The sky is falling; civilization will crumble if the family isn't saved. Both...embrace a state enforced social conservatism [blending] nationalism and extreme obsessions with law and order....
