One of the reasons Reagan did so well, particularly among younger voters, is because of this unspoken compact with the religious right: "We will protect your right to live according to your beliefs and values and raise your children according to same. We will not allow you to impose them on the nation as a whole."
When Republicans and conservatives follow this model, we win. When we forget it, we lose.
The problem, however, is that groups like GOProud are violating the "compact."
Let's face it - the "Religious Right" is not "forcing its values" on anyone. That is simply bumper sticker fodder for social libertarians. Quite frankly, I know of very few social conservatives who actually want to "force their values onto others." They are most concerned with it being done to them - and let's face it, if there's values-forcing going on, it's being done FAR MORE by the social radicals than it is by the social conservatives.
The main issues that motivate the "religious right" - abortion and gay marriage - are both PUBLIC issues that belong in the PUBLIC domain. Neither have anything to do with "what you do in your own bedroom."
If you want to fornicate, that's your business. If you want to kill the child who resulted from your lack of self-control, that is OUR business. Murder is not "private" merely because it takes place behind closed doors. I can't blow somebody away in cold blood in my own home, and not be prosecuted just because the act was done privately. Likewise, murdering unborn children becomes the business of society - ALL of us - it's not an act that exists merely between a woman and her doctor.
Likewise, gay marriage involves the demand on the part of gay activists that the rest of society sanction their particular lifestyle to the point of redefining one of themost fundamental bedrocks of our social system. It is not a private issue. If gays want to do their thing behind closed doors, that's their business. It's when they start demanding that the rest of us grant the legitimacy of marriage to it that it becomes our business.
And as far as equal rights are concerned - it's NOT an equal rights issue. Any gay man has the exact same marriage rights as any straight man. Any gay man can marry any unmarried woman he chooses. No straight man can marry another man, even if were to want to. So, you might say, that doesn't take into account their preferences. So what? Nobody guarantees you that you're always going to get everything you prefer in life. Nobody has the civil right to have every last thing they could ever want.
What we see with both the abortion and the gay marriage issue is that social radicals (a minority, btw, if polls and elections mean anything) are forcing THEIR beliefs onto the rest of us. Sounds like it THEY who are violating the compact.
Further, let's not exaggerate the "libertarianism" of the Reagan administration. Reagan was against abortion, and surrounded himself with people who were. The policy of dishonourably discharging discovered homosexuals from the military still existed all throughout his administration. Reagan was no libertarian hero when it comes to taking action against public issues that libertarians disagree with conservatives about.
Bull, Reagan was the darling of social conservatives, the libertarians had their greatest year in American politics in 1980 trying to defeat Ronald Reagan. They have never reached those levels again as when they were united against him.