My latest over at Greg's place. When I say that some conservatives dislike federal civil rights enforcement because it "involve[s] the federal government securing certain inalienable rights against the kind of cultural pressures they see as integral to a healthy society," I'm not even talking primarily about race. Yesterday's Washington Times panic over the possibility that DADT repeal could lead to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation being outlawed nationally is a non-racial example of this phenomenon. Conservatives regard religious prohibitions against homosexuality as a positive, and so federal enforcement of gays and lesbians' civil rights is detrimental to society as a whole because it erodes "traditional" morality.
Race is just the easiest wedge issue on which to discredit federal civil rights enforcement. There's a reason we don't hear about this stuff in the context of disabled veterans being denied jobs, for example.
