"The problem with that argument is that history has repeatedly demonstrated the positive effects of traditional morality"
No argument up to here...
"and the ability of laws that support it to effect positive change. That much is simply not a matter of opinion, but fact repeatedly proved."
Traditionally, women weren't even able to determine who they would marry. Is this the 'traditional morality' you espouse? Merely asserting that 'it isn't a matter of opinion' doesn't make it a fact. Were your assertion true, that laws supporting 'traditional morality' do effect positive change, Islamic countries would LEAD the West. There is no more representative class of countries legislating the "traditional morality" of the world, whence myriad abominations were damned by death sentences and women were kept barefoot and ignorant. Argue your point with a mullah, and you'll learn your thesis has nothing backing it up beyond your faith in its veracity and your evident belief that 'traditional morality' started after the feminist movement was launched.
"Traditionally, women weren't even able to determine who they would marry."
There's much more myth than truth to that. Further, it also applied to men. In any case, the matter of the parents' authority in selecting childrens' spouses is not a matter of morality, but of social custom.
"Merely asserting that 'it isn't a matter of opinion' doesn't make it a fact."
No, but a good, long look at history does.
"Were your assertion true, that laws supporting 'traditional morality' do effect positive change, Islamic countries would LEAD the West."
Buncombe. That illogic is so full of holes you could drive a Volkswagen through it without ever hitting a fact.
One logical fallacy in which you're engaging is to pretend that any social custom surviving from antiquity is an essential component of traditional morality. Another is ignoring the 2,000 years since Christianty surged out of the Levant. And a third is assuming that the positive effects of laws codifying traditional morality would override every other historical and geographical consideration. I could go on, but why bother?
"There is no more representative class of countries legislating the "traditional morality" of the world"
That is as ridiculous as leftists calling Bush a fascist. Christendom has been at war with Islam more or less continuously since the 7th century, and the differences between Islamic extremism and traditional morality within the context of Western Civilization are vast.
"your evident belief that 'traditional morality' started after the feminist movement was launched."
I remember a couple of decades before the feminist movement was launched. I remember when traditional morality still reigned in America. And for those reasons, I am able to distinguish between traditional morality and the boogeymen you're trotting out.