One reason that Americans must work to protect life, religious liberty and marriage is that other Americans are hard at work undermining these values. If there is a culture war in America, conservatives are not the aggressors.

A House Divided Cannot Stand:

On Social and Economic Conservatism

Ryan T. Anderson

The American Principles Project (APP) released an important new report yesterday that marshals data showing a majority of Americans support policies held by social conservatives. The report argues that a unified platform of social and economic conservatism is a winning electoral strategy-though conservatives need to greatly improve their messaging on economic policy and start messaging on social policy.

Most importantly, however, advancing such a unified governing agenda is the principled thing for Americans to do.

The conservative movement exists to uphold the truths of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The right to life is not only for the strong and powerful, the rich and famous. It is for all human beings, including the weak, marginalized and infirm-wanted or unwanted, born or unborn. Redefining who is included in the community of rights-bearing individuals so as to exclude the unborn is not the principled thing to do.

The right to liberty takes on particular importance when addressing the most important-and sacred-things. After all, the first right protected in the Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion. Citizens, the groups they form and the businesses they run should be free to act in the public square according to their conscientious beliefs.

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