The loyalty of the religious right

Though the Pew Center poll finds growing dissatisfaction (dillusionment?) of the Religious Right with the GOP, Jeremy Lott and Patrick Hynes say that religious conservatives are not likely to abandon the Republican Party:

The Democratic party elites cheer when regulators force Catholic charities to fund things the church considers immoral. They vote to curtail the freedom of conscience of pro-life pharmacists. They filibuster judicial appointees who do not hold to the interpretation of Ted Kennedy, senator, of the constitution-as-rubber-stamp for liberal causes. Worse, they compare religious rightists to Muslim terrorists ("Christianists") and warn that we have entered a new Dark Age. Garry Wills, the popular historian, called the 2004 election the end of the Enlightenment on American soil, and meant it.

The good folks who make up the religious right may not love the Republican party, but they know a threat when they see one. The modern Democratic party is hostile to their very existence. An embarrassment for the Deanified Democrats in the November mid-term elections would be a victory not for theocracy, but for enlightened self-interest.

This is precisely why I will probably end up holding my nose and voting Republican. I don't like the Republicans much these days. But as a religious conservative, I fear the Democrats.