Has the Culture War returned for 2012? And is the GOP on the losing side now?

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There's a very simple reason the GOP has done so well on the abortion debate: federal abortion laws in the United States are not only significantly more lenient than the international norm, but they are much more lenient than most Americans want. Both the official Democrat/Republican position on Abortion are far away from what most Americans want, but the current status quo is closer to the Democrat position, which naturally gives the "issue" advantage to the GOP. If abortion laws become far more strict, I could see this reversing.

It's a very mixed bag on social issues. The GOP has basically achieved total and complete victory on gun issues. Both parties will probably lose with the War on Drugs. Affirmative action will probably go onto the same dustheap of history as forced busing. There are more to social issues than "GOD AND GAYS" and the GOP has actually been pretty successful on those social issues.

Gay marriage seems to be a total defeat for the social conservatives, but there is a silver lining. It is highly probable that gay marriage will be the law of the land everywhere within a generation, but it's quite probable social liberals will try to go farther, such as teaching gay history in schools, crusading against heteronormativity, trying to push for hate speech laws. And if they overreach like that, they'll probably get burned.

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Significantly more lenient that the international norm? They're roughly as restrictive as Canada, Cuba, Guyana, South Africa, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Baltics, Norway, Sweden, the fmr. Yugoslavia, the fmr. Soviet Union, Bahrain, China, Mongolia, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, and many others. We're nowhere near more lenient than the "international norm" if you're considering the international norm to be developed countries and others comparable to the United States.

Yes, yes, 2nd Amendment stands, War on Drugs is a failure like Prohibition, affirmative action eventually dies, and liberalism prevails.

That's simply not true. The only real federal prohibition on abortion is on intact dilation and extraction, which almost never happened in the first place. Theoretically in the absence of state law, you could get an abortion up to the birth date.

Of course, we do have state laws, so we should look at them. http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_PLTA.pdf

Generally, the states split into three groups. Some prohibit at 20 weeks, others at 24, and some at 28. And some, primarily the most conservative state, have requirements such as a 24-hour waiting period, parental notification, or the approval of two doctors. The abortion law in Europe is generally closer fitting to red states, and by closer, I mean considerably more restrictive.

For example, in Germany, abortion is only permitted up to the twelfth week of pregnancy and only after a three-day waiting period and a period of mandatory state-provided (anti-abortion) counseling. This is /far/ more restrictive than anything in even the reddest of American states.

This twelve-week standard (first trimester) is in fact the norm in France, Italy, and Belgium (also has mandatory counseling), Austria, Swizerland (yay counseling) and most European countries. Spain is somewhat more lenient at 14. Sweden is one of the /most/ lenient at 18. And the Netherlands is considered the most lenient of all at twenty weeks. Twenty weeks as we can see, is generally the median among American states. And of course, this is not even mentioning the European countries where abortion is completely banned (such as Poland and Ireland).

If every state in America was to switch to the "Western European" model of abortion law, it would represent a victory for the pro-life movement beyond their wildest imaginations.

Also, I believe if one loses on every single issue except one (gay rights), we call that defeat.

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Yes, yes, 2nd Amendment stands, War on Drugs is a failure like Prohibition, affirmative action eventually dies, and liberalism prevails.

Also, I believe if one loses on every single issue except one (gay rights), we call that defeat.

If one wins on every issue you named (gay rights, 2nd amendment, the war on drugs, affirmative action, and abortion), I believe that's a victory.

Are you referring to classical liberalism or libertarianism? Because for the American social liberal movement as embodied by the Democratic Party, they've clearly lost on the 2nd amendment, affirmative action, and have lost ground on abortion (at least from the hey-days before Casey).