Why I Can't Help Voting GOP

My book "Crunchy Cons" is filled with Sturm und Drang over the complicated and anxious relationship conservatives like me have with the Republican Party. But it takes something like Maggie Gallagher's must-read cover story in The Weekly Standard to remind me why, however great its sins and failings, the GOP is (for now) our political home.

In the piece, Gallagher reports from a Becket Fund for Religious Liberty conference iin which legal experts from both sides of the gay marriage debate met to talk about the road ahead. The consensus -- please note, the consensus, not merely the view of conservatives -- is summed up in this passage, in which Gallagher quotes Anthony Piccarello, the Becket Fund's president and general counsel:

Just how serious are the coming conflicts over religious liberty stemming from gay marriage?

"The impact will be severe and pervasive," Picarello says flatly. "This is going to affect every aspect of church-state relations." Recent years, he predicts, will be looked back on as a time of relative peace between church and state, one where people had the luxury of litigating cases about things like the Ten Commandments in courthouses. In times of relative peace, says Picarello, people don't even notice that "the church is surrounded on all sides by the state; that church and state butt up against each other. The boundaries are usually peaceful, so it's easy sometimes to forget they are there. But because marriage affects just about every area of the law, gay marriage is going to create a point of conflict at every point around the perimeter."

For scholars, these will be interesting times: Want to know exactly where the borders of church and state are located? "Wait a few years," Picarello laughs. The flood of litigation surrounding each point of contact will map out the territory. For religious liberty lawyers, there are boom times ahead. As one Becket Fund donor told Picarello ruefully, "At least you know you're not in the buggy whip business."

Here's one fascinating aspect of this report. Gallagher says she found those legal scholars opposed to gay marriage to be less worried about the future, because they find it difficult to imagine that the law will come to treat homosexuality like it does race. Those scholars who favor gay marriage rights are much more likely to expect major showdowns. Why? Gallagher thinks that it's because they move in circles where this civil rights equation has already been made. I can tell you from my little corner of the MSM that most people who work in the media live in that world too. You would have a hard time finding people to agree that the struggle for the right to gay marriage is any different from the struggle for black civil rights.

The real kicker is this: "Once sexual orientation is conceptualized as a protected status on a par with race, traditional religions that condemn homosexual conduct will face increasing legal pressures regardless of what courts and Congress do about marriage itself." Translation: churches, synagogues, mosques, religious schools and other institutions that uphold traditional moral teaching about homosexuality stand to lose their tax-exempt status.

I don't have a lot of faith that the Republicans will do much to defend religious liberty in this coming war. But I have complete faith that the Democrats will do their best to destroy it.