Reactions to Bristol Palin’s pregnancy have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide.

Religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. Evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. Evangelical Protestant teen-agers are also significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception.

For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn’t true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.

From the last Presidential election cycle:

"Moral values."

By near universal agreement the morning after, these two words tell the entire story of the election: it's the culture, stupid.

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be Rupert Murdoch. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News.

Red Sex, Blue Sex