Leave it to Andrew Sullivan to make Maggie Gallagher seem sensible.

The erstwhile conservative writer, one of the more provocative voices of the 1990s and now a peddler of conspiracy theories ranging from the influence of Jews over American foreign policy to the provenance of Trig Palin, recently faced off against the country’s most dogged opponent of gay marriage in a room full of right-of-center gays at the Cato Institute, the country’s premier libertarian think tank. They, along with Nick Herbert, a gay Conservative Party member of the British House of Commons, were gathered to debate the question, “Is there a place for gay people in conservatism and conservative politics?”

What could have been a provocative and much-needed discussion, however, quickly devolved into a shouting match, thanks to Sullivan’s needless aggression. For instance, he demanded the names of any gay people who oppose same-sex marriage, since Gallagher claimed to personally know such individuals. (I do too, and while I may disagree with them, the reason I, and Gallagher, don’t divulge their identity is because of the onslaught of viciousness they would receive from other gays, perfectly exemplified by Sullivan.) What any of this had to do with the topic at hand was lost amid the theatrics. And Gallagher, who is perhaps the most effective opponent of gay marriage because she doesn’t resort to biblical arguments condemning homosexuality, was left looking like the reasonable one.

Sullivan also refused to address one salient fact: According to a CNN poll, 27% of self-identified gay voters supported John McCain in the last presidential election, the highest such figure ever recorded for a GOP candidate. In actuality, the number is likely higher, given that there are presumably many gay people who do not divulge their sexuality to pollsters. Regardless of whether the conservative movement thinks there should be room within it for gays, there are plenty of them already there.

One could witness this in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of right-wing politicians, grassroots activists, bloggers, and other assorted hangers-on that is one of the largest such conventions in the country. Two months prior to the event a bit of controversy erupted when GOProud, the barely year-old organization for “gay conservatives and their allies,” announced it would join CPAC as a sponsor. Several far-right organizations protested, insisting that the event’s organizers not allow GOProud to participate. When CPAC rejected their demands, these groups, led by the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law, revoked their own sponsorship. One of the most talked-about moments of the convention occurred when Ryan Sorba, a young conservative activist and author of the tract The Born Gay Hoax (which, amazingly, has yet to find a publisher), denounced GOProud, declaring a straight libertarian who had just welcomed the group to the conference his “enemy.” Sorba was booed off the stage.