As an undergraduate at a small religious liberal arts school in California, I double-majored in Religion and Political Science.  Religion and PoliSci?, people would say, don't those sort of cancel each other out?  Yes, would be my reply, officially in the United States, Church and State don't mix.  I wrote a variety of papers (and proposals for papers, and graphs and charts for myself) attempting to determine what philosophical emulsifier makes the oil and water of Church and State suddenly compatible when you look at Religion and Politics. 

All of that is simply an aside, really, a mention of my context when I read this yesterday on the Volokh Conspiracy.  Eugene Volokh just gets it.  I've been reading what this man writes since I first had e-mail many many cyber-moons ago (pre-Windows 95, I think); his newsletter was the first eNewsletter I subscribed to.  Ever.  In any event, in this post, he points out the philosophical inconsistencies in some [Christian] Conservatives' tolerance of religious diversity and lack of tolerance for non-traditional sexual preferences.

. . . Religious freedom, those people would point out, means (among other things) that we tolerate religious differences, and that we don't discriminate against people in government employment just because of their religious beliefs.

. . .

So my question, as many of you might well have guessed, is: Why shouldn't devout conservative Christians apply the same principles to homosexuals that many of them would to Hindus?

It's a good read.  And, once you're finished, check out the comment thread where this post is mentioned at Hit & Run.  And check out follow-ups on VC here (re: Ten Commandments vs. Noachide Laws) and here (on, well, why he can't follow up more).