Will Anti-Gay Christians Adapt of Make Themselves Irrelevant?

As noted a number of times, the demographics of the USA are changing rapidly towards more diversity and racial mixing. Concurrent with this trend is the growing acceptance of LGBT individuals by younger generations as the older bigoted generations are literally dying off. The question thus becomes whether or not anti-gay Christians (and their water carriers in the GOP) are going to adapt to this changing reality or hold fast to antiquated beliefs that conflict with modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation and thereby commit a slow motion form of suicide making themselves ultimately irrelevant. An op-ed in USA Today argues that adaptation and modernity are the correct path to follow. Meanwhile, the leaders of the professional Christian set and virulently anti-gay denominations seem Hell bent to stay the course and drag their poisonous form of Christianity to dead religion status. Yes, there are currently plenty of sheeple who will fall for the anti-gay snake oil, but in the long term the Kool-Aid drinkers will be dwindling in numbers and the anti-gay cash cow utilized by hate groups will have gone the way of the Dodo. Here are some column highlights:
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It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance of gay men and lesbians and insistence on their equal rights are inexorable. If the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" weren't enough to signal the turning point, or the classification of several gay-resisting Christian right organizations as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there came news that Exodus International was ending its involvement in the anti-homosexuality "Day of Truth" in U.S. high schools.
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Add it up, and you see a decision point at hand for socially conservative Christian groups such as the Family Research Council that have led resistance to gay rights. Do they fight to the last ditch, continue shouting the anti-gay rhetoric that rings false and mean to the many Americans who live and work with gay people, or who themselves are gay? Or do they soften their tone and turn their attention to other fronts?
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Prayerful discernment and simple Christian decency would strongly suggest the latter. The alternative looks worse by the day — a quixotic battle more likely to discredit its fighters and their fine religion than win any hearts and minds for Jesus. Christianity has far worthier causes than this. For all its drama and rally-the-troops appeal, "fighting to the end" is a sure loser.
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Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins continues his steady drum beat of dark warnings that homosexuals are radical, unwell and out to destroy Christianity and the family. Chuck Colson, best known for his admirable prison ministry work, has described same-sex marriage as "the greatest threat to religious freedom in America." Is Colson claiming that the religious liberty of a subset of Christians is abrogated if those Christians do not get to dictate the law of the land on marriage?
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Conservative Christian leaders ought to be very careful about their rhetoric going forward — careful not to continue giving the impression that being Christian is in large measure about opposing gay rights, and careful not to let the public expression of their faith become primarily associated with something that looks, sounds and feels like hate to growing segments of the population.
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Fighting to the end might sound gallant, but it's not a road to glory so much as a ticket to infamy — an infamy akin to that borne by the likes of Bull Conner, George Wallace and other villains of civil rights history. Is that any hill for Christians to die on?