Conservative in America ain’t what it used to be.

“The whole idea about conservatism is about individual freedom, individual liberty,” said Matt Hissey, a 22-year-old college student, at this past weekend’s cpac.

Really? The dictionary says conservative means holding fast to established, traditional norms, customs and values. Too bad for tradition: More and more American “conservatives” agree with Hissey.

For 38 years, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, sponsored by the American Conservative Union, has drawn dozens of high-profile right-wing American political figures, hundreds of conservative activist groups and thousands of participants. Hissey was a volunteer for an organization attending the conference for the first time—and actually co-sponsoring this year’s event. This group’s inclusion caused some consternation among long-time participants, and not just because of Hissey’s off-kilter ideas on just what conservatism is.

Hissey is a member of GOProud, America’s first-ever organization that “represents gay conservatives and their allies.”

cpac organizers wanted to show just how big the tent for “conservatives” has grown. Now it includes proud homosexuals and people who want homosexuals in the military and support other “gay rights” issues. Define “conservatism” as individual freedom and liberty, and all kinds of possibilities open up.

Predictably, though, the move rankled those who actually favor preserving traditional norms. GOProud’s presence at cpac drove some folks to boycott the event, including the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. GOProud’s executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, said the boycotters “have chosen to marginalize themselves out of the conservative movement.” The fact that such right-wing luminaries as Sarah Palin, Andrew Breitbart and Ann Coulter supported GOProud’s presence would suggest he’s correct. Clearly, Republican organizers felt they had more to gain by courting homosexuals than they had to lose by alienating social conservatives.

And if cpac attendance is an indicator, they wagered right. Despite the boycott, it was the best-attended conference ever. An informal poll among attendees found 10 times more supporters for the group’s participation than opposers.

Advantage GOProud. “It’s a watershed moment for the anti-gay right to pick a fight with somebody like us and lose in such a high-profile way,” the group’s chairman, Christopher Barron, says. He claims the protesting individuals and groups have lost donors and supporters because of their position. “I can promise you, they never saw this coming. They never thought they would lose this fight—or they never would have picked it. It’s been completely embarrassing for them.” He calls them “a fringe element” of the conservative movement—“a really nasty, anti-gay, bigoted element.” “And,” he boasts, “we have smoked them out, and we have marginalized them.”

It’s hard to argue with that last point. cpac says it’s not sure about maintaining a relationship with GOProud. But history shows that the homosexual movement, ever on the march, seldom surrenders ground it has won. Don’t expect GOProud, for its part, to back down after such a triumph. It plans to be “very engaged” in the 2012 elections, Barron says.

This cause has been moving mainstream for years. Last year, Gallup found that, at long last, more than half of Americans believe homosexual relationships are morally acceptable. “This is the ‘social issue’ that’s losing traction every single day,” says Barron.

Matt Hissey says when he manned GOProud’s cpac booth, he was thanked by a stream of participants for coming and “for driving the wingnuts away.” Barron criticized a prominent Republican attorney for her role in the boycott by branding her “a nasty bigot.” He called boycotting Republicans “losers” and sneered, “They’re all excited that Jim DeMint is boycotting. And that’s fantastic. I’m glad that he’s willing to be on the Island of Political Misfit Toys with [World Net Daily’s Joseph] Farah and the Concerned Women for America.”

So now, apparently, this acrimonious homosexual is mainstream “conservative”—and those who are uncomfortable with that are wingnuts, misfits, losers and really nasty bigots, justifiably exiled to the political fringe.

Left-wing homosexuals are well known for their attacks on those who disagree with them. It was hardly surprising, then, that GOProud’s founders tore a page from the left’s playbook in denouncing their detractors, people staunchly associated with conservative American politics for decades before GOProud even existed.

The homosexual movement says it opposes hate and intolerance. Remarkable how hateful and intolerant it is of anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace it.

It condescendingly condemns anyone opposed to homosexuality for religious reasons, calling them backward and barbaric—then proudly evangelizes for its own cause with nothing less than religious zealotry. It belittles Bible-believers for blind faith—and then overlooks, ignores, dismisses and ridicules any evidence that reveals the benefits of traditional family, or that exposes the damage their agenda wreaks.

Ironic, isn’t it, that one of their favorite accusations against conservatives is that of hypocrisy.

So—champions of homosexuality now include prominent “conservatives”—even some who claim to believe the Bible. But the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, is exceedingly clear in its condemnation of homosexuality. These people want to treat this—God’s explicit identification of a moral sin, like killing or lying—as if it is as irrelevant as some Levitical tabernacle cleansing ritual. They are not interested in holding fast to established, traditional norms and values. They want to create their own norms and values.

Homosexuals have appropriated the word “gay.” They are trying to redefine “marriage.” Now they are taking over “conservative.”

“The whole idea about conservatism is about individual freedom, individual liberty,” they say. Wrong. The way they are defining it, such freedom, such liberty, is a vicious attack on conservatism. It is an assault on tradition. It is, in fact, aimed at uprooting and trashing eternal truths.

Jeremiah prophesied, “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” Those old paths are worth remembering, worth holding fast to, worth preserving—they lead to greatness. “But they said, We will not walk therein” (Jeremiah 6:16).

“Homosexual conservatives” are in the vanguard of a society aggressively pursuing an anti-Bible agenda that is dismantling the old ways piece by piece and hastening our ruin by doing so. This promotion of personal license over the broader interests of society is a deadly error.

All history proves that strong societies begin with strong marriages and families, yet self-professed intellectuals continue heedlessly striking blows at the pillars of family life. In their eyes, the deepest sacrifices to society are worth the resulting gains in “individual freedom”—which is actually personal license.

In truth, that license hurts both the individuals who indulge in it and society as a whole. It deeply violates the law of God—an eternal, binding law that no human being can alter. Time will prove conclusively that the more we celebrate what God has condemned, the more misery, strife, bitterness and unhappiness it will generate. In the end, the increasing social fragmentation it brings will ruin us.