By Steven Thomma,Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Mustang, Okla., is the kind of place where folks might have thought the 2004 election settled the culture wars.

Solidly Republican, the town of 13,000 sits in a county that went for President Bush over Sen. John Kerry by 77-22 percent and a state where moral values were by far the voters’ top concern. Their side won.

So when the public-school principal banned fifth-graders from acting out a Nativity scene in a school pageant out of deference to the Constitution’s prohibition against government-established religion – while allowing symbols of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to remain – town folks were incensed. They retaliated by voting down bond issues that would have raised money for the local schools, their first such rejection in more than a decade.

As this episode illustrates, when it comes to fundamental differences over cultural values among Americans, the 2004 national election settled little – thus far. The disputes over culture and morality that rippled through the campaign season continue unabated, from heated confrontations over Christmas displays in public settings to new fights over sex and violence in popular entertainment.

Beneath it all is a clash of values: the rights of the minority, as defended by officials such as judges and educators, versus the will of the majority, as expressed in elections. These disputes will continue to permeate the country’s politics, and are likely to crescendo in debates over the selection of federal judges.

It’s noteworthy that several of the most contentious social issues of the last half-century have been kicked off by courts. These include the 1954 Supreme Court decision ending segregation in public schools, the 1963 Supreme Court decision banning mandatory prayer in public schools, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion and the 2004 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriage.

When such social changes are ordered by a court without the support of a majority vote either in an election or a representative legislature, the issues often remain contentious. But if they’ve been ratified by a majority vote – as civil rights were by Congress in the 1960s – the changes tend to become accepted in mainstream political thought.

Several issues continue to simmer today. One is the ban on so-called partial-birth abortion, enacted by Congress and supported by a majority of Americans but overturned by three federal courts and now under appeal. Another is the question of same-sex marriage, mandated by the Massachusetts court but soundly rejected by majorities of voters in 13 states.

Because these and other value conflicts remain unsettled, skirmishes continue as each side of the divide digs in or escalates.

“Secularists are getting more emboldened and my side is fighting back in more and more places,” said Gary Bauer, the president of the conservative group American Values.

Said independent pollster John Zogby: “It was particularly notable during this election, because what was missing was a center, a buffer between the two sides.”

“The nation split into two almost evenly matched sides,” Zogby said.

While the country has been split by a clash of values at least since the 1960s pitted liberal countercultural values against more conservative traditional ones, two contradictory trends became clearer this year.

On one hand, the country appeared to continue moving toward a more traditional morality, at least where sex is concerned. Sexual activity among teens has dropped in recent years, a government study reported this month. Teen pregnancy, births and abortions all dropped over the last 10 years. The rate of sexually transmitted diseases among all Americans, while inching upward since 2000, is two-thirds lower than it was a decade ago.

At the same time, confrontations seem to have accelerated this year, from the Federal Communications Commission’s punishment of CBS for showing Janet Jackson’s bare breast during the Super Bowl in February to this month’s fights over religious Christmas displays in Oklahoma and other states.

Popular entertainment – movies, TV, music, video games – set up some of the most contested battlegrounds.

For weeks, social conservatives have complained about a new movie on sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, whose work in the 1940s and 1950s helped usher in the sexual revolution.

“Kinsey’s work has been instrumental in advancing acceptance of pornography, homosexuality, abortion and condom-based sex education,” said the conservative group Concerned Women for America. “And his disciples even today are promoting a view of children as sexual beings. Their ultimate goal: to normalize pedophilia, or adult-child sex.”

When the movie “Alexander” tanked, some commentators speculated that it was because it highlighted Alexander’s bisexuality.

“The cultural pendulum has begun to swing toward traditional morality again,” online columnist Ben Shapiro wrote, noting that the five movies that bested “Alexander” in early box-office sales all were rated G or PG.

Perhaps. Or maybe this movie did poorly simply because they’re lousy.

After all, there are still plenty of Americans on the libertine side of the cultural divide. The hot hit of the fall television season is “Desperate Housewives,” where sexual intrigue fills Wisteria Lane and a key plotline is the extramarital affair between one wife and the lawn boy.

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