The majority will only see the Democrats as less threatening than the Religious Right if the Left wins the public relations battle. Now granted, they have a huge advantage in this because of their domination of the mainstream media (who still reach more people than any other single source), but if the GOP/Right is going to let that discourage them then they might as well surrender on pretty much all issues.
The fact of the matter is that on most of the hot-button, contentious social and cultural issues the public holds conservative views. They oppose racial preferences. They oppose amnesty for illegal aliens. They support reductions in legal immigration. They oppose abortion on demand. They oppose bilingual education. They support Second Amendment rights. They oppose gay marriage (and civil unions in many, if not most, states). They have no problem with public nativity scenes and prayers before highschool football games.
The Right/GOP needs to do a better job of simply pointing out the truth of the situation, and by that I mean they need to point out that it is not conservative Christians who are trying to impose their values on everyone else, but instead that it is the Left doing that via the judiciary.
I mean, which is a true, or worse, imposition of values: the people voting by large majorities to ban gay marriage, or gay marriage and civil uions, OR as few as 4 or 5 people imposing gay marriage/civil unions on an entire state or nation? A community collectively deciding that they'd like a nativity scene at the local city hall, OR a Court telling them that such a move is forbidden by an Establishment Clause that forbids Congress from creating a state religion? A state deciding it will not allow the gruesome partial birth abortion procedure in except in the rarest of cases, OR a federal judge throwing that law out because it isn't written so broadly as to render it meaningless? Who is doing the imposing here?
If the public ever realized just how much the far-Left relies on the Courts to impose what can't be won in a fair and proper democratic fight, then they'd see that the Courts are much more of a threat to their values than the evil Religious Right, because in fact many of the values of the RR are in fact mainsream, majority valuse of Americans in general.
And best of all, they might just realize that there is such a thing as voting with their feet. If one doesn't like laws in Texas, then they can move. If one doesn't like the law in Mass, then they can move. New York and Mass and Calif are in no danger of having conservative social policy imposed by the Religious Right. All the RR wants is that the Courts not deprive them of the right to have policies reflective of their views implemented as public policy in the states where their values are the mainstream mores.