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So, I just read a column in the Washington Post about Crunchy Cons. This is a new category of conservatives who embrace wacky, liberal ideas like eating organic food and, um, well actually, they didn’t seem to embrace any other liberal ideas other than eating organic food. He’s a right-wing writer who happens to like organic broccoli. She’s a stay-at-home mom who bakes pumpkin bread and pretty much disappears into the background in the story. They’re both converted Catholics who don’t like fags and abortion. Sure, they’ll tell you that they don’t have anything against homosexuals. They just think marriage is a sacred institution reserved for people like them. And don’t you dare read a story about two men getting married to their children. Not while they’re so young and easy to indoctrinate with the right (that is, correct) ideas.

Here’s what the story said to me, in essence: We’ve found a life we like; everyone else should live this way, too. And that just about sums up the problem with conservatism. For all the talk about liberals being dogmatic, politically correct, ideologically rigid fascists and “femi-Nazis” who shout down any attempt at dissent, it is always the conservatives that identify orthodoxy and homogeneity as worthwhile social and political goals.

Take, for example, the current debate on immigration. The argument made against the Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner is the key to the conservative idea that assimilation is the correct goal of immigration. “We are happy to let you into our country to do the dirty work we won’t,” they say. “But you’ve got to learn English, speak quietly, and become like us.” But what does being American have to do with leaving behind all previous ethnic, linguistic and cultural connections? If “American” means anything, it is that our strength is in an amalgam of the various cultures that comprise our population.

Again, we see the same thread with the debate over gay marriage. The so-called homosexual agenda and the gay lifestyle are seen as threats to the nice, normal straight white value system. And marriage is an important part of that value system. When gays started to vocally demand access to the privilege of marriage, it caused an uproar. But I don’t think many straight people seriously believe their marriage is any less valid because two people of the same gender can also be married. The conservatives are shaken by the realization that there is no “gay lifestyle.” What shatters the conservative argument is that if they really believe the values they ostensibly promote – equality, personal liberty, self-responsibility – they have to acknowledge that they are keeping company with a much wider spectrum of humanity than they might want to admit.

Conservatives, crunchy or otherwise, are faced with the reality that, for all their talk of fundamental moral values and guiding principles, their ideology boils down to creating a rationale to criticize things that make them uncomfortable. They want to live in a world where everyone is just like them. Sure, they’re open to debate – should we support the war because the world is safer without Sadam, or because if we weren’t fighting the terrorists over there, we’d be fighting them over here? – but don’t go overboard or you’re just one of those relativists with no values.