Are the culture wars raging unnoticed? ABC’s Rick Klein says that cultural conservatives have received a series of setbacks recently, but all the fervor is over fiscal issues — not social ones. Iowa and Vermont have legalized same-sex marriage. New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire are moving in that direction. Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy and ended the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research — and the silence, says Klein, is “deafening.”

Dan Gilgoff counters Klein’s view that these are major victories, pointing out the Mexico City Policy change only turned the clock back to the Clinton era and the stem cell decision was only a partial victory for liberals. And 29 states have constitutionally banned gay marriage, while only four have legalized it:

Sure, liberals have racked up a few recent victories in the culture war. But the tide ain’t turning in a haven’t-seen-this-in-decades kind of way.

I think Klein is hearing a deafening silence not becacuse people don’t care or aren’t still fighting, but because covering other stories has taken media precedence. And while GOP leaders who never cared about social issues in the first place may be even less inclined to give them lip service now, recent setbacks won’t change the dedication of conservative leaders who have actually worked on these issues. And the recent attention to Miss California’s answer on gay marriage shows that the silence Klein hears isn’t a constant state.