The republicans are perhaps the most savvy groups of politicians in history. For the last 30 years they have stood against social progressiveness (gay rights, censorship of pornography, non marital sex etc...) for the SOLE purpose of keeping their base fired up against the incoming homo invasion. Meanwhile they have lost all those battles on the social conservative front. But when it comes to fiscal conservatism they have largely won all their battles (deregulation of wall street, lower taxes, etc). IMO this was not an accident. They needed a large motivated group of shills to support their fake causes(social conservatism) while behind the scenes they led the charge on what they really care about (MORE MONEY).