So, I'm relatively young; at 22, I've been old enough to halfway understand politics for at most a decade. Nevertheless, I did a double take at "more emphasize

So, I'm relatively young; at 22, I've been old enough to halfway understand politics for at most a decade. Nevertheless, I did a double take at "more emphasized in the latter", and perhaps there is an advantage to looking at the short term. In that time span, in terms of big mainstream issues, on Democrats' side in favor of less government control of social norms (for its own sake rather than to effect another policy), we have: - gay marriage legalization - not that the ideology has had much to do with the role of government, but treating would-be spouses equally gets the government out of the picture - abortion - quite explicitly with "women's bodies" rhetoric - stem cell research - marijuana legalization - immigration, sort of, in the sense that acceptance of illegal immigrants is a social issue in addition to an issue of laws - euthanasia (not a big issue) On the Republicans' side we have: - opposition to affirmative action - opposition to education centralization - but No Child Left Behind was signed by Bush - gun rights - gun violence, obviously, directly hurts other people, in contrast to most of the issues on the other side, but the proper role of guns also a social issue Maybe I just have a bad memory, but the first list has a lot more in the way of hot-button and clear-cut issues than the second.