The United States has intermittently experienced left- and right-wing populist movements that challenge established forms of corrupt political authority and promise to return America to the ideals of its founders and people. For those who might have hoped that the new century would bring an end to ideology or even to familiar ideological conflicts of the Left and the Right, the Tea Party movement and other forms of right-wing populism, in the U.S. and abroad, offer little hope of such a resolution. Most eruptions of populist anger are directed against elites and elite values; however, the most recent manifestations of populism are also characterized by the omnipresence of corporate media and the important role that popular media personalities play in actively promoting right-wing populism. Together, these insightful scholarly articles provide new understandings of contemporary right-wing populism, including the ways in which the media either have actively promoted such populism or, more passively, failed to challenge its ideas and political consequences. This collection will be useful for students of American politics as well as students of contemporary right-wing politics. This book was published as a special issue of New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture.

Progressive politics has long been in crisis in the United States. As the radical Left realizes the dire consequences of defining themselves solely by what they are against, this collection challenges leading engaged academics and activists to show how radical politics can lead to a more fruitful democracy. Dealing with pressing issues of the day such as health care, race, immigration, religion, foreign policy, unions, feminism, liberalism, education, and the media, this edited volume looks at the prospects for a progressive turn in U.S. politics. In doing so, it hopes to inspire the radical imagination by showing where we can go from here. As technology continues to enable greater access to ideas around the world, the power of intellectuals is greater than ever. And given that the world is full of crushing poverty, sexism, uneven development, environmental degeneration, religious fanaticism, racism, and imperialism, the need for intellectuals to inspire the radical imagination by championing principles of economic and social justice, democracy, and universality is also greater than ever. However, political visions are required to guide that struggle. This is the aim of this book.

The diverse expert contributors to this volume from the fields of politics and law use moral argumentation with respect to same-sex marriage, gay rights in general, and California's Prop 8. The arguments are advanced in terms of the nation's foundational political and legal principles, extending ethical argumentation to important contemporary public policy areas such as marriage, the separation of church and state, and the rearing of children. Several chapters also contest the perceived if not actual establishment in the law and public policy of heterosexist and religious bias that continues to work against full and meaningful inclusion of sexual minorities. This bias is ironically and improperly couched in the language of American political and religious values, and it misunderstands the nation's core principles, or willfully miscasts them as inapplicable to many Americans and their families. Nonetheless, this bias is pervasive in the nation's political discourse, working to deny an important right and the recognition of equality to many citizens. The main contribution ofMoral Argument, Religion, and Same-Sex Marriage is in its direct engagement with the political and legal arguments of the gay community's critics on their own moral and ethical terms. Along the way, important concepts in public discourse_such as governmental neutrality, the right to marry, and religious freedom_are presented and cast in the light of liberal-democratic theory.