I don’t think that “the culture wars” are going away any time soon. First, the talk show pundits are making their fortunes from it, and they will continue to exacerbate the situation for their own profit, with no regard to what is good for the people of America. Second, the fundamentalists are convinced that their positions are God’s positions, and it would be denying their faith to even consider rationally the other side. Those who do not agree are God-denying enemy infidels (sounds a lot like those other fundamentalists, doesn’t it?). Third, the progressives refuse to understand the roots of the positions of the conservatives and prefer to dismiss and vilify them rather than dialogue with them. Progressives are convinced that dialogue with “fundamentalist intellectual neanderthals” is impossible.

Richard, I have to disagree with your blanket statement that “progressives refuse to understand the roots of the positions of the conservatives and prefer to dismiss and vilify them rather than dialogue with them. Progressives are convinced that dialogue with “fundamentalist intellectual neanderthals” is impossible.”
I am a progressive who is the son of very fundamentalist conservative Christians (Pentecostal and Salvation Army). Trust me, I (we) most assuredly DO understand the roots of the conservative positions. I, and multitudes like me, came from those traditions and we simply reject them because we find them false and hollow and not at all Christ-based.
The “dialogue” you seem to want pretty much is impossible because of the “neanderthal” postition that manifests itself in conservatives (both religious and political) calling God’s gay and lesbian children “worse than terrorists”, “worse than murderers”, and those who compare us to “beastialists”, “necrophiliacs”, “child-molesters”, “rapists”, “cannibals”. ALL of these are actual quotes from those who claim the name of the Christ right here on Beliefnet. (The “worse than terrorists” and the “worse than murderers” comments are from 2 State Governors. Even Mike Hucklebee (a man who would be President) compared gay relationships to “marrying a child or an animal”. Rick Warren thinks they’re equivalent to incest.
Please do not tell me this is “civil dialogue”. It isn’t. It is most uncharitable. It is un-Christian because it is false witness (aka a sin).