"How much power should we give the government to save us from ourselves?"

The ironic thing is that these days it is much less likely to be rural religious types pushing for behavioral regulation than crusading urbanites from exactly the kind of secular enclave Ren MacCormack hails from. No small parishes in the Bible Belt have, for example, banned the Happy Meal as the city of San Francisco did in an effort to combat childhood obesity. Nor is it pulpit-thumping preachers full of holy fire calling for bans on light bulbs, football, or SUVs. A more honest reinterpretation of Footloose might have had a metropolitan school administration banning dances on the basis that they reinforce traditional gender roles.