Young and Old in the Cross Fire of the Culture Wars

Abstract

This chapter describes the main discourses articulated by young and old cohorts to talk about gay marriage and isolates the effect of cohort on discourse. Discourses are a product of cohort and ideology, such that the culture war discourses of support and opposition were produced primarily by young liberals and older conservatives. Young conservatives and older liberals produced “middle-ground” discourses that show the tension created by the polarized discourses: their ideology pushed them toward one position on gay marriage, while their age cohort pushed them toward the other. Controlled comparisons of the discourses of ideologically identical parents and children show that cohort affects discourse via the attitudes they express about lesbians and gays. This chapter shows that the dynamics of the culture war should be measured dialogically in communicative interaction, not monologically in public opinion surveys.