Gay rights and religious freedom

You're right about this. Political conservativism is subject to the very difficulties you point out. Its weakest characteristic is its reactionary-ism, meaning its defining itself more in opposition to liberalism's latest manifestation than by reference to political principles. For example, too much of the Right clings to federalism as the most effective restraint on big government, but that is a false hope for it has never worked. Their preferred solution to the problem of Roe v. Wade is to return the abortion issue to the states, without thinking through the problems that gave rise to easy abortion in some states (New York, California) before the U.S. Supreme Court nationalized abortion. Abortion was made a national issue and must be ended by national action.

I think the fear that gay rights threatens religious liberty is correct, for the two positions are utterly incompatible, but political liberty is not less threatened by gay rights. Like slavery, homosexuality seeks status as a kind of positive good, not merely a bad thing to be tolerated out of necessity. So you're right to question the singular plea for religious liberty, for that exposes it perhaps more than necessary as a kind of merely tolerated eccentricity. Christianity has fueled too many major reforms in England and America to be so marginalized. It is an ally of political freedom and a critical counterweight to nihilism. (This does not mean that Christianity as a political force does not have difficulties, but its position is hardly enhanced by a conservatism that takes it bearings from liberalism.) Conservatives too often ignore the Declaration of Independence, which is the quintessential marriage of natural law and natural right, of revelation and reason. We must not deprive the nation of the salutary influence of either.