The political editor of a nominally conservative website, Townhall.com, revealed this week that he is a practicing homosexual. Guy Benson will write in a book coming out soon that he is gay and a supporter of marriage based on the “infamous crime against nature.”

In fact, he admits that “from time to time” he may well become an occasional activist on behalf of the homosexual agenda. He also believes that the Republican Party’s embrace of natural marriage, the institution God designed and defined at the dawn of time, is a “barrier to entry to the party,” a barrier which he believes must come down. He seems dedicated to do his part to demolish this barrier and turn the GOP into a sodomy-promoting political machine.

Benson is young, smart, and articulate and often appears on Fox News as a pundit on all manner of political issues. This makes him a particular risk to the conservative cause of defending natural marriage.

Now I don’t know Mr. Benson, and he certainly seems like a particularly nice and friendly individual. But this is not about his personality. It’s about his politics.

Townhall, by the way, is owned by Salem Media Group, which describes its mission as “targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values.” To my knowledge, Salem has yet to explain how paying an openly homosexual activist to be the political editor of its main public policy publication is consistent with this mission.

If Salem leadership is to be at all true to its own mission statement, Benson must be replaced. His values on homosexuality are not Christian, family-themed, or conservative.

In truth, the term “gay conservative” is an oxymoron, along the lines of “honest thief.” The first term is flatly and inescapably contradictory to the second.

There is nothing “conservative” about homosexuality or the homosexual agenda. To be a conservative under any understanding of the term means to conserve, protect and defend the values on which America was built. To put it bluntly, those values do not include celebrating, endorsing and promoting unnatural sexual expression.

If the term “conservative” is to have any meaning at all, it must include certain ideals and exclude others. No one can legitimately call himself a conservative if he does not vigorously and robustly defend the institution of natural marriage as the sole relationship in which sexual expression may legitimately be enjoyed and as the optimal nurturing environment for children.

Natural marriage is the first institution God created, before he created the institution of the state or the church. It is the sole foundation on which any healthy, stable, and prosperous society can be built. Every civilization which has abandoned natural marriage and thestandard of monogamy within it has wound up on the ash heap of history. No man can call himself a conservative who does not labor to protect this most precious institution.

Now homosexuals who call themselves conservatives may well believe in smaller government and a strong military, two of the three pillars on which modern conservatism is built. That makes them two-thirds conservative and one-third libertarian.

One website which claims to triangulate on this issue calls itself the “Gay Patriot” and dedicates itself to “freedom, fairness, free speech, privacy and true American values.” What such folks are blinded to is that they have become willing accomplices in supporting an agenda which will in the end refuse to allow any of these values to be honored in American culture. Just ask the Christian bakers in Oregon who are now facing $135,000 in fines for not bowing the knee to the god of gayness.

So a new term must be invented to describe those who share Mr. Benson’s predilection for smaller government and non-normative sexual expression.

Some such individuals call themselves “homocons.” Perhaps “gayservatives” or “gaytarians” or some other such concoction will suffice. Just don’t call them “conservatives,” for that most certainly is not what they are.

This article was originally posted at the AFA website.