Socialism to communism. Break down of morality and the family.
Yes, these are part of the issue but it runs much deeper than that. When I was growing up, America was a vibrant country, throbbing with faith. Dare I say, we were 'conservative' in makeup. Sundays were spent worshiping our Lord, followed by family dinner. Socialism and communism were political issues prevalent in far off baltic countries.
That was until the feminists began to rear their ugly heads. As American society began to 'progress' in response, other voices materialized. In 1960, Madalyn Murray O'Hair filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System, in which she asserted that it was unconstitutional for her son William to be required to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. In this litigation, she stated that her son's refusal to partake in the Bible readings had resulted in bullying being directed against him by classmates, and that administrators condoned it. After consolidation with Abington School District v. Schempp, the lawsuit reached the Supreme Court of the United States in 1963. The Court voted 8–1 in Schempp's favor, which effectively banned mandatory Bible verse recitation at public schools in the United States. Prayer in schools other than Bible-readings had already been ended in 1962 by the Court's ruling in Engel v. Vitale. God was removed from the American Public School System.
This was the beginning of the slide down the slippery slope. In 1973, in a landmark decision, the US Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion. And the slide continued both on state and federal levels. Today, the issue is gay marriage.
Like any single issue, there are tentacles that extend outwards, some grasping at others to draw them into the larger one. Growing up, we Catholics prayed for an end to communism in Russia. Today, we need to pray for our own nation. May God have mercy on us all!