Allies on the right Republican leaders are telling their rank and file not to support gay marriage. Is anyone listening?

When the student newspaper at conservative Baylor University in Waco, Tex., published a column in late February supporting gay marriages and civil unions, there was a rumble from above. It wasn't the Lord, but the school's president, Robert Sloan Jr., who furiously reprimanded the paper's student editors at the world's largest Baptist university--where dancing on campus was banned until 1996. "Espousing in a Baylor publication a view that is so out of touch with traditional Christian teachings is not only unwelcome, it comes dangerously close to violating university policy," Sloan said.

The young journalists aren't the only freethinkers in traditionally right-wing settings who've voiced support for same-sex marriage during the past few weeks--and felt the heat from conservative leaders. President Bush's promotion of a constitutional amendment to ban such marriages may have satisfied certain fundamentalist Christians, but it let other Republicans unimpressed.

Take Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance Match 1 on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, when the governor of California said it would be "fine with me" if state law were changed to permit same-sex marriages. Or listen up in New York City--the venue for this year's Republican national convention--where Mayor Michael Bloomberg voiced his support for same-sex marriage during a dinner with gay journalists. "The message was very clear, there was no waffling," says Bob Witeck, CEO of tire gay-focused marketing and communications firm Witeck-Combs Communications, who attended the dinner. "The basic [message] was 'I don't support breaking the law, but I support changing the law.'"

The split among the Right started growing well before the Massachusetts supreme judicial court ruled last November in favor of equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Corwin E. Smidt, an evangelical professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., conducted a study before the 2000 elections that polled 4,000 U.S. adults. When asked, "Should homosexuals have the same rights as other Americans?" 46% of survey respondents who identified as evangelical Protestants voiced some level of agreement with the statement, while just 39% disagreed.

Smidt says the choice of words affects the debate among conservative Christians, who are more apt to support file idea of civil unions for gays and lesbians than marriage. "There is an awareness in the evangelical community of the gays and lesbians in their own ranks," Smidt says. "And that in terms of our theological understanding we all are sinners and we all fall short, raid Goal loves all of his creation. That is the starting point for gays, like everyone else."

Same-sex marriage may well become a wedge issue not between liberals and conservatives but within the Republican Party itself. Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay political group, says conservatives are joining one of the three camps: the hard right, who oppose granting gays and lesbians any kind of equal fights; the middle--such as Arizona senator John McCain--who oppose a constitutional amendment, often arguing states should decide; and the camp of conservatives who are open to legalizing same-sex marriage or civil unions. Those allies may be the best hope for gay rights, Guerriero says. "The gay and lesbian community must have voices within the majority party. There is no way we will pass legislation of any kind without having Republican support."

He adds, "From Baylor University to the home of the vice president to the homes of many Americans and religious conservatives, there is a generational shift that recognizes that in every campus and in every family gays and lesbians are part of them."