There are trends sweeping the nation in a cultural, spiritual and physical sense and some consider them to be enlightened. It's more complicated than just moral standards because even the most "moral" pillars of our community, when all alone and no one is looking or listening, they agree with principle. For example...
Legalization of marijuana - medical or otherwise. Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot see this ever happening in the state of Oklahoma. Liquor by the drink was hard enough to get through the concrete walls of morality, to pass something as controversial as medical marijuana under this Pharisaical leadership just is not going to happen. The only way it will be even considered by the hyperbolic moral majority in Oklahoma, is to see one of their own suffering under immense pain with no hope for relief. It's okay, of course, to prescribe medication that is highly addictive and destroys the body from the inside out, but marijuana is "of the devil." Personally, I have a difficult time reconciling my position about legal alcohol while marijuana remains illegal. The hypocrisy stacks up so fast in Oklahoma, you need wings to stay above it.
Elimination of the death penalty. We like killing bad guys in Oklahoma. It's as though we have a desire to be like our big brother, Texas, when we grow up. Regardless of the fact that we have screwed up executions so badly as to be an international embarrassment, regardless of the fact that we have no doubt imprisoned the innocent and called them guilty (Jeffrey Todd Pierce, for example) and destroyed their lives, regardless of the fact that we tout our "pro-life" position like a badge of courage but kill prisoners with impunity, we just like the feel of what we deem as justice, our unique brand of justice. We use Scripture to argue our position of being pro-life, but forget that those Scriptures are written in both the imperative and indicative tenses - and that it applies across the board, and not selectively. This is not to say, of course, that we can use deadly force to protect lives in the moment, in the immediate sense. There is justification for that, but to imprison on shady or questionable evidence and then to kill in the name of the state... What ever happened to Joyce Gilchrist, by the way?
Over the last couple years, it seems like Oklahoma is undergoing a bit of a change, a shift if you will. The change isn't a shift to the left or to the right politically, but rather it seems like the level of apathy has reached epic proportions. The legislature continues to trudge ever forward, presenting legislation that is largely moral in nature instead of Constitutional. Think about it: Legislation that increases the difficulty for divorce where children are involved (as though keeping children in a dysfunctional household is the right thing to do), DNA samples taken at the point of felony arrest - not conviction, and the list goes on. There is a change in the wind alright, and I don't think anyone is going to like it much.
What difference does it make to me or to the average Joe? Not much. We're too concerned with staying alive than we are changing public policy.
Of course, these are just my opinions and I could be wrong. But I seriously doubt it.
Gorilla
