Bad company corrupts good morals. Or something like that. Who knew that reading RedState diaries such as this one would lure me to a website like Salon. Really. In my attempts to filter non-uplifting and/or demoralizing sources of internet content, I avoid spending (wasting) time scouring sites spawned by the left. But to satisfy my need to comprehend Leon’s point in his diary, I went to Salon — my first visit ever — and got stuck there for a while. Sucked in by this:

Earlier this week, President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against gay, lesbian and transgender employees. To the relief of LGBT-rights supporters — and the dismay of some conservative religious groups — companies with religious owners seeking contracts with the feds are not exempted.

For gay-rights advocates, it’s an initial win in what will be a prolonged battle. With the dominoes falling for marriage equality across the country — just since January, courts have struck down gay-marriage bans in 15 states — social conservatives have given up trying to stop the spread of gay rights; instead, they’re looking to opt out under the banner of “religious liberty.” Last month’s Supreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby, in which the Justices found that “closely held,” for-profit corporations have religious-freedom rights, has only emboldened this effort.

Now, if you’re like me, it never really occurred to you that a court ruling regarding Hobby Lobby’s right on religious grounds to refuse to provide abortifacients would spook the poop out of the LGBT underworld, but like a lion who roars in the night, it seems to have done that very thing:

Well before the Hobby Lobby decision was issued, LGBT rights groups settled on a plan. However the Court ruled, they would downplay the decision’s significance. Having carefully cultivated support among faith leaders — helping to make the case that marriage equality and nondiscrimination are not just for us non-believers — the major gay-rights groups did not want to set up a showdown between religion and LGBT rights. “The idea was to distance the ‘religious liberty’ movement from LGBT rights,” says a source with close ties to the negotiations. “Let’s not provide our opponents with a roadmap for how to bring claims against us using the Hobby Lobby decision.”

I won’t bore you with all the details. But, in a nutshell, the LGBT think tanks and war strategists are losing sleep and splintering over strategy trying to figure out how they can get around the Constitution’s religious liberty protections so they can force everyone to stop discriminating against them. Reading my first article at Salon wasn’t so bad after all. It gave me insight into how these people think. And Hobby Lobby’s really got them spooked.

Somehow, that makes me smile.

The Watercooler is always an open thread.