The current attack on religion, and indeed on the whole Greco-Judeo-Christian core belief system which helps define Western civilization, had its roots in the revolutionary 1960's, whose disciples seized upon the works of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (who interestingly enough also called himself an historian). I referred to Derrida above.
Derrida developed the concept of deconstruction, which questioned the Western philosophical tradition and in fact questioned the whole of Western culture. Derrida's aim was to politicize the universities and to tear down the core tenets of Western culture, all in accordance with Derrida's Marxist belief system.
The revolutionaries of the '60's, Derrida's cultural Marxist disciples, eventually captured the education system, and then much of the MSM. They have succeeded in capturing the language and hence control thought. They now control the zeitgeist.
The net result of this is that the left, by having captured the schools and universities and MSM, have succeeded in banishing rigorous intellectual debate and have in effect ushered in Orwellian Newspeak - i.e. a goal of cultural Marxism - the contemporary euphemism for which is PC speech. This is the death of freedom of speech by a thousand cuts.
We now have a generation which, like frogs slowly being boiled alive, doesn't even realize the extent to which they have entered the realm of Orwellian Newspeak and thought control; doesn't even realize the extent of the consequential loss of any intellectual curiosity in searching out opposing viewpoints, in order to learn/test your own; doesn't realize that the academia-driven leftist black armband view of American (and indeed, Western) history is agenda-driven, as is its accompanying fellow-traveler, the theory of cultural relativism.
And any debate or opposing viewpoint is strongly resisted, because that challenges their self-perceived moral superiority, as they have a strong existential stake in being right: to be wrong is unthinkable and heretical. Those who challenge their views are labelled as rednecks/racists/misogynists etc etc, in an attempt to close out the debate.
This is sad. This is, as you say, moral totalitarianism.
These students/activists (but not their mentors in academia) are driven, like Superman, to battle evil and oppression ["oppression" being a code word in search of victims]. But not only this, they are encouraged by the pernicious theory of deconstruction to also eradicate the cultural environment and cultural underpinnings which they think foster and tolerates these evils du jour.
Where does this road end? Answer - totalitarianism.
In the absence of a grounding and a context within a moral/religious and philosophical framework and where there is a concept of God, totalitarianism thrives. Totalitarianism suits the leftist mindset - which is morally simplistic and emotions-driven. It eschews debate favored by the classic ideal of the worldly philosopher, who confronts, and not hides from, what he fears, and who seeks to engage the complexity of the world, and to know that sometimes the way to wisdom involves hurt feelings - tolerating difference and facing hard truths.
Instead, we have a kind of emotional hive-mind of adolescent group-think (which again is an aim of cultural Marxism). This has resulted in the right of free speech having been supplanted by an entitlement to what Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education calls a" right to freedom from speech deemed uncongenial". This entitlement is buttressed by “trigger warnings” against spoken “micro-aggressions” and code words (e.g. vibrant/minority/community/disadvantaged/diversity) that are sacrosanct; the breach of which lacerates the delicate sensibilities of individuals who are encouraged to be exquisitely sensitive.
