I am definitely not on @roddreher 's side on the underlying questions, but I do think there's something very real in what he's describing. Going after Kim Davis and Masterpiece Cakeshop does provoke real mobilization, and that has consequences.

https://twitter.com/roddreher/status/1200138317741928448

Some opponents of LGBT rights pretend that they've always been the live-and-let-live moderates and that's obvious nonsense. Sodomy laws were on the books in many states until 2003. The war against even civil union when religious conservatives were ascendant was uncompromising.

But even if to a person they were opportunistic Johnny-come-latelies to moderation, pluralism, and associational liberty, it does not follow that those are the wrong answers-- or at least might not be strategically wise. Scorched earth victories contribute to polarization.

Abortion probably doesn't admit of partial solutions, and we might be stuck with scorched-earth politics there. But the Utah compromise points the way toward a very different politics over LGBT equality and religious liberty. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/12/utah-legislature-passes-landmark-lgbt-anti-discrimination-bill-backed-by-mormon-church/ .

It is absolutely the case that there would be social conservative demagoguery seeking to inflame the fears of religious conservatives on these questions regardless of how liberal majorities governed. It was true even when a Dem president signed DOMA &enacted Don't Ask Don't Tell.

I don't think there's any reasonable likelihood of turning the relevant voters into Democrats.

But there are questions of *intensity* that affect mobilization & turnout. And the Kim Davises and Masterpiece Cakeshops of the world matter on those margins.

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PS: See also @AndrewKoppelman , one of the most serious and thoughtful scholars on these questions, with a book forthcoming about them.

https://balkin.blogspot.com/2019/11/an-olive-branch-spurned.html