Also, note that all the recent video game legislation is being introduced by Democrats, not Republicans:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/16/3885232/bill-video-game-rating-labels-restricting-adult-rated-games

Wait, you would've voted Republican in 1980 and 1988?

And are you aware that the Reagan Administration vigorously prosecuted obscenity at the federal level through the Department of Justice and its U.S. Attorneys Offices (significantly disrupting the market for pornography until the Internet Age and the lax enforcement of the Clinton Administration), that the Reagan Administration lobbied against pornographic magazines being sold in grocery stores, and that the Administration convened the Meese Commission to study the harmful effects of pornography?

I mean, that's a heck of a lot more than the second Bush Administration ever did regarding censorship - in fact that Administration focused almost exclusively on child pornography, with relatively few obscenity prosecutions - and all of them targeted against pretty deviant (rape simulations, scat porn, bestiality, etc.) depictions of sexuality.

So, I don't really buy your argument. It smacks of the sort of revisionism I hear from liberals who say the Republicans have magically become so much more conservative in the past decade. That may be true fiscally (though probably not), but it certainly isn't true socially.

I'm merely articulating plausible arguments, not necessarily my own opinions. It's what lawyers do.

But as to your example regarding the coercive atheists: of course it's plausible. Yet, will conservatives abstaining from using the police power to maintain public morality really preclude the opposition from doing so once they have enough public support? It's arguable that the libertarian mindset leads to a one-way ratchet in which progressives will always use the state to achieve their ends and to shape the culture while conservatives just maintain state neutrality while they're in power.  That's counterproductive.

Why is that curious? Conservatives aren't synonymous with libertarians, and public morality has traditionally been a legitimate basis on which to exercise the police power. One could view pornography/graphic video games as more corrosive of public morality than lawful possession of firearms and hence make that distinction regarding criminal enforcement.

I'm with Joseph on this. My generation is essentially a case study in delayed adolescence.

I scored 49, and I'm 24 years old. Ugh, I'm such a traitor.

Law nerd correction: Blackmun wrote Roe, not Brennan.

Despite all the flak it's taken in recent years, I've found that Notre Dame stays pretty close to its Catholic roots. Heck, its law school faculty is like a bastion of conservatism.

Russell Kirk.

Count me as a maybe too.

One of my classmates constantly talks about how expecting women to take precautions to avoid rape perpetuates the "rape culture."  In fact, she posted this very picture on her Facebook last week.  The thing is, though, she never makes a peep when there is a mugging near campus and students receive an email detailing common sense ways to avoid getting mugged.  Robbery culture, anyone?

But isn't that basically the same thing as being chaste out of a fear that God will punish you through eternal damnation? In both cases, you are complying at least partly because of the sanction, not necessarily solely because of a belief that the activity is immoral.

Plus, you might still think something is wrong and give in to the temptation. The law can be used precisely to help citizens avoid those temptations. For example, if there is a legally operating brothel down the street, it will be easier for young men to succumb to the temptation than if they have to search one out.

The state has a long history of legislating virtue: i.e. laws in the U.S. proscribing sodomy, adultery, fornication, incest, prostitution, bigamy, bestiality, public indecency, obscenity, contraception, gambling, drugs, etc.  Obviously, as norms change, some activities become legalized while new ones become criminalized.  But I don't really see the state getting out of the business of legislating virtue, nor do I see either side of the political spectrum ceding that ground to their opponents.  In a way, all politics is about fighting over how society will be structured, and that includes what behaviors will be allowed.

As for a moral code to guide this mushy middle, I just suggest that the basic values of temperance and restraint apply to all sexual relations, regardless of marital status.

Human beings are able to distinguish themselves from the other creatures on this planet precisely because of their capacity to consciously transcend base impulses in order to achieve some greater good. I think that any notion of virtue (either religious or secular) would include a belief in self control.  

I absolutely agree that sex within marriage is fundamentally different, and marriage provides the most stable and socially beneficial environment for sexual activity.

At the same time, at least while the average age of first marriage occurs in the late 20s, I am wary of making the perfect the enemy of the good by creating a framework of sexual ethics that only applies within marriage, thus allowing all sexual decisions outside of marriage to migrate to the lowest common ethical denominator. If anything, I want some of the societal expectations of marriage to apply to non-marital relationships - with the ultimate goal that such relationships eventually become marriages.

I certainly don't. To me, sexual libertinism is an ethos that separates the sexual act from emotional intimacy, commitment, and responsibility. Notwithstanding any religious objections I may have, I  don't really see the sex that occurs within a monogamous relationship of 4 years as any more libertine than the sex occurring within a marriage of 4 years.

That said, I prefer a more pragmatic approach: 1) encourage youth to delay the onset of sexual activity, and 2) expect that this sexual activity only occur in the confines of a committed and loving relationship.  

At the same time, I still think abstinence should be advocated by our culture for those who have the desire and willpower to remain abstinent. Right now, my impression is that those who even suggest abstinence are mocked and ridiculed. That needs to change.