Famous American writers who were not Christian, such as Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and Robert Heinlein, were wont to complain about the "Mrs. Grundy" factor, that is, public opinion that provided social constraints in the area of morality. To a large extent, the moral restraints evident in America before 1960, and particularly before 1900, were the result of societal opinion that strongly denounced sexual immorality. First elite academia and later the mass media toppled "Mrs. Grundy" from her high horse, all in the name of freedom and individualism. However, when that self-policing declined, so did American morality.IMHO, the toppling of "Mrs. Grundy" was abetted by Comstock and his ilk, who eleveated her to a precariously high pedestal on that high horse, and made it no longer a matter of "self policing", but government policy at the highest level.
Rev. Henry Comstock was a New York minister noted for his promotion of the Comstock Act, which in 1872 banned interstate commerce in obscene materials through the U.S. Mail. Several facts must be remembered about this statute. First, Congress was at the time dominated by Radical Republicans, who well exceeded Abraham Lincoln and Henry Clay, themselves strong government Whigs, in their zeal to centralize political power in Washington. As such, they were in opposition to the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian mistrust of central government. The defeat of the attempt of Southern secession eliminated the notion of limits on Federal power in the eyes of the Radical Republicans. Second, Comstock was not motivated by his concerns about public morality, but in protecting his friend, the prominent New York minister, Harry Ward Beecher, from having word of scandals involving him and his mistress spread via the mail system.
Using the U.S. Mails as a tool of censorship defied both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. The U.S. Mail was authorized in that document to exist. However, its monopoly was never intended. Nor was the "interstate commerce" clause in the Constitution intended to be anything other than establishing a free market among the states, eliminating interstate tariffs. However, Federal power has been abused as far back as the Sedition Act of 1798. The U.S. Mail prevented the dissemination of abolitionist literature in the South before the Civil War. Seditious materials were often banned from the mails, particularly during the Civil War and the two World Wars. Today's advocates of "hate crime" laws, who include a majority of the Senate, the RINOs not excluded, would do the same thing to political and religious speech.
Comstock, though not motivated by enforcing morality but in protecting a fellow clergyman, was wrong. Those who would use Federal power to enforce personal morality are also misguided. The fact remains that those who scream the loudest against censorship on sexual matters seem to have no problem in silencing Christians and other moral people, as well as those who advocate what they deem as "hate."