Elizabeth Oldmixon rightly observes that heretofore few, if any, books have been devoted exclusively to the study of congressional voting behavior and legislative sponsorship on moral conflicts. The existing body of research, including my own work, is based on scholarly articles that analyze roll call voting on abortion, mainly, with some attention to gay rights. I was not aware of any systematic analysis of roll calls on school prayer, that is, until the publication of this volume. In sum, Oldmixon's purview includes roll calls and legislative sponsorship of bills on abortion, homosexuality, and school prayer in the 103rd through the 107th Congresses.

The heart of the empirical analysis in Chapter 4 could have been published as a stand-alone article in a leading journal. Much of the remaining volume details rich case studies of the contested cultures of “progressive sexuality” (Chapter 2) versus “religious traditionalism” (Chapter 3) in modern America. This material breaks no new ground for scholars with expertise in these social movements, but for the novice, they are a good starting point. The author's rationale is to provide contextual background for the empirical analysis that follows. What makes this book so much richer than a simple presentation of logic regression models is Oldmixon's inclusion of personal interviews with House members and their staff. The interviews are utilized not only to inform the variable list and the direction of causal relationships but also to give credence to her results. Reading those interviews was especially informative and brought this analysis to life.

A properly replicated study over more than one Congress, like Oldmixon's, enhances the validity of the empirical findings, and undoubtedly her substantive conclusions will stand the test of time. Students of morality policy are moving toward conceptual and methodological consensus about why this policy domain is different and what variables operationalize those differences. One key distinction is that economic cleavages should not matter but that religious cleavages should. That paramount assumption is verified here. The overall empirical conclusion is that after controlling for party and ideology (Republicans and conservatives are more opposed to abortion and gay rights but more supportive of school prayer), religion matters both at the elite and mass levels.

Catholicism matters a lot more than conservative Protestantism, however, and this disconnect is the major paradox identified by Oldmixon. Both being a Catholic lawmaker and having a Catholic presence in the congressional districts exert a conservative influence on roll call voting and legislative sponsorship. Being a conservative Protestant (broadly defined) has no effect on the behavior of representatives, nor does the size of those denominations in the congressional districts. Oldmixon properly assumes that conservative Protestants are much more committed to school prayer and express a less nuanced opposition to homosexuality than Catholics, but both faiths are allies against abortion. Surveys do show that Catholics and Protestants are not dissimilar in their attitudes toward abortion. So why is conservative Protestantism not the more salient variable?

I share Oldmixon's instinct that religiosity may be relevant, but as she points out, we have no measure of religious commitment among members of Congress. On the other hand, it is not obvious to me that rank-and-file Catholics would be more religious than conservative Protestants. Ultimately, she speculates about the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church as compared to the more democratic and eclectic grouping of conservative Protestant denominations. If the answer to this paradox is organizational, then perhaps that could have been addressed by controlling for the location of bishops or cardinals, as well the presence of Catholic adherents in each district.

What some readers will find problematic about this study is the conceptualization of culture, admittedly a long-standing methodological issue in political science. On the one hand, the author draws from sociologists of religion to define culture as a “moral order” (p. 15) based on a shared sense of how people ought to live their lives. On the other hand, she agrees with T. Alexander Smith and myself (Cultures at War: Moral Conflicts in Western Democracies, 2003) that moral controversies are essentially “status” conflicts between the forces of hierarchy (of which religion is one big influence) and pressures for egalitarianism. Those “cultures” (along with individualism) were identified in the writings of the late Aaron Wildavsky. The conceptual problem of tying culture too closely to religion became obvious very early in this book. The first chapter discusses race relations and gun control as cultural conflicts, and while I agree that both involve status conflicts, most observers would be hard-pressed to identify a religious underpinning to the debate over guns.

At the same time, the concept of culture is so stretched that it seems little more than an analogue for values. Oldmixon hypothesizes that the primary influences on legislative behavior will be party, ideology, and religion “because the phenomena are reflective of underlying cultural values” (p. 28). But surely religion evokes a sense of “moral order” in ways fundamentally unlike party or ideology? There was no need to frame party or ideology as cultural phenomenon to justify their inclusion in the analysis. They should be included to assess whether the long-standing predictors of legislative voting (on primarily economic disputes) extend to moral controversies and, if so, whether they augment or displace any effects from religion. Clearly they augment religious effects, which offers a prophetic conclusion to this book. That is, the historic left–right continuum on economic issues has accommodated the “new” cleavage based on “progressive sexuality” and “religious traditionalism.” Although cultural conflicts may have caused a realignment among voters, they have served more to reinforce (not to realign) political elites, not only in Congress but, I suspect, across Western Europe as well. This caveat aside, Oldmixon has authored an important book that speaks to a future research agenda for congressional scholars.