Well said, Leilani!
I am beginning to think that there is big difference between a "Constitutional Conservative" and a "Social Conservative".
Constitutional Conservatives debate the issue from the standpoint of protecting the freedoms of choice that our Founding Fathers gave us and limiting the government's right to interject themselves into our personal lives, even when we actually don't approve of some of the individual choices that these freedoms allow.
Social Conservatives debate the issue from the standpoint of getting the government to do what they want them to do, as long as it limits freedoms in a way that they choose it to and not in ways they choose it not to -- with little consideration for how to accomplish this without dimishing the freedoms that both God and our Founding Fathers intended us to have.
I am a Constitutional Conservative, as I believe that you are. Perhaps that, at times, makes us "further Right" than many here on certain issues and at other times, makes us sound "further Left". That is a matter of perception based on the issue and on which kind of Conservative the reader is.
And I also agree that there is a big difference between "granting special privelidges to homosexuals" vs. recognizing that "they have basic rights as taxpaying citizens" just like the rest of us, and what they do in their bedroom is none of our business -- because if the government can make their behavior its business, then they can make our private behavior its business, too.
If all of us here agreed on everything, then there would be no "debate" -- we'd just be a mutual admiration society in this little corner of the cyber-space that wouldn't mean a rat's ass. But the point here is to debate issues of importance to our country and society -- and I fail to see how just trashing homosexuals on the board -- which is what happens most of the time that something like this is posted -- accomplishes that. If we have nothing more to do than that, then we are no better than a bunch of schoolchildren hurling taunts across the playground! And that isn't "conservatism" of any kind -- it's immaturity!
The issue is homosexual sex -those that feel rights should be afforded others based upon their feelings or actual choice to engage in homosexual activity versus those that consider such thinking absurd. Regardless the window dressing you wish to hoist upon the issue -that is the issue...