Not everyone who is deviating from the divine order of things wants to force the destruction of that divine order

I realize I have not yet weighed in on either the election of Pope Francis or this year's CPAC.  One - I guess we should make that two - of those cases in which pundits across the spectrum jumped right in on  those developments and said everything I'd have to say, at least for a few days.

Now I can see that the areas of cultural and spiritual overlap between them are what interests me most about each.

The obvious noteworthy elements about the selection of Cardinal Bergoglio - his being a Jesuit and an Argentine, his mix of scholarly rigor with a hefty dose of everyday-life-type experience - have been amply covered.  A fair amount of attention has also been given to the ridiculous expectations of the Left that he - or whoever had been selected - would bust Catholic doctrine wide open with some kind of revolutionary progressivism.  The idea that this moment in Church history was going to be an opportunity for wild departures concerning marriage or gender and how either relate to the priesthood was the stuff of FHer fancy.

Probably the closest to a must-read about Pope Francis I've come across is Mary Eberstadt's essay at Time, in which she says that he embodies contemporary Christianity's overall dilemma, which is winning souls in an increasingly secular world.

Regarding the other current event, CPAC, while considered ineffective and perhaps even irrelevant by some conservatives (a view that's not universal), has been a treasure trove of electrifying speakers, from Allen West to Pat Caddell to Amity Shlaes to Rand Paul - to name but a sampling. (To be sure, the organizers also included some irrelevant - indeed, non-conservative - head-scratchers, such as Donald Trump and Mitt Romney).

So where is the convergence of which I spoke in paragraph two?

It's certainly there in the matter of homosexuality.  Here you have a religion, Christianity, that says that homosexuality is a violation of the way God ordered the universe.  On the other hand, you have an undeniable segment of the population that professes a same-gender orientation and considers itself conservative - as in embracing all three pillars of that worldview.

My sense, from conversations over the years with conservative homosexual friends, is that all they ask in that realm of their lives is to be able to work out their salvation privately - which is  way salvation is worked out for anyone anyway.  They are absolutely correct that, as advocates for the free market, a vigilant foreign policy, and, yes, a sociocultural view rooted in upholding basics like commitment, loyalty, decency and dignity, their presence at the table is essential.

When one considers the type and degree of attack on our three pillars by the Left in all its manifestations, it makes no sense to exclude anybody who might have some useful ideas on how to defeat our common enemy.

Remember, we are talking about conservatism here - which means recognizing and honoring immutable truths.  If some brethren who admit to being in a particularly vexing spiritual position are willing to so recognize such truths, shouldn't we enlist their insights on the 85 percent of common ground we have with them?

I may have some more thoughts about areas of overlap between these two news items.  The point, as Breitbart, Mamet and many others have stressed many times, is that culture is upstream from politics, and no wonkery or back-room machinations are going to be effective until we have a solid sense of how to engage the culture.