'That the great battles in America's culture war were being fought between Christians and those who had emanicipated themselves from Christianity was a conceit that both sides had an interest in promoting. It was no less a myth for that. In reality, Evangelicals and progressives were both recognisably bred of the same matrix. If opponents of abortion were the heirs on Macrina, who had toured the rubbish tips of Cappadocia looking for abandoned infants to rescue then those who argued against them were likewise drawing on a deeply rooted Christian supposition: that every woman's body was her own, and to be respected as such by every man. Supporters of gay marriage were quite as influenced by the Church's enthusiasm for monogamous fidelity as those against it were by biblical condemnations of men who slept with men. To install transgender toilets might indeed seem an affront to the Lord God, who had created male and female; but to refuse kindness to the persecuted was to offend against the most fundamental teaching of Christ. In a country as saturated in Christian assumptions as the United Sates, there could be no escaping their influence - even for those who imagined that they had. America's culture wars were less a war against Christianity than a civil war between Christian factions.'
Tom Holland, Dominion, p.514.
