One of the most influential groups in the GOP are the Objectivists and general sympathizers to that POV, it's a group of atheists and agnostics who've had a fairly comfortable home with the GOP for decades. Now the Christian Right did have a lot of push in the 90s, they have since lost much of that cohesion and influence, along with the NEoCon hawks. Currently the party influence has shifted mostly to put the libertarian's back in ascendance restoring the Fusionist Tripod of the late 70's to 80s but remains home to dozens of factions - the GOP has very, very lively internal debate we just present a solidified front as much as possible - I've been an active party official for years now and very bluntly open about my views on legalizing gay marriage and drawing back a bit on drugs and I've never gotten even a negative comment about it. Now abortion and gun rights, those we really have become more adamant on expecting the leadership to back, but the party as a whole has remained pretty consistent on the issue.

Don't buy into the BS, platforms and major speeches are public record, the GOP hasn't shifted further to the right, rather its eased up on several things that the Dems have also eased up on, these are generational issues more than anything else and republicans are older on average then democrats, the median republican primary voter is 60. Now the dems do, in my opinion, have the moral high ground on gay rights, but really only in the sense that they moved their a it faster because they could. They moved quite slowly from an ideological viewpoint, simply waiting till - as their younger median age permitted - enough dems favored it to allow a candidate to run. It's not like the GOP has gotten harsher on gay rights, 20 years ago the average Dem view on the matter was to the 'right' of the GOP's current one by a good margin.

Now many of us do see ourselves having shifted back to the right, but we see it as restoring the concept that hierachal power structures should always try to place control and authority over a given thing at the lowest level that reasonably functions. Hence, garbage pick up shouldn't be run by the county over the city without very clear and solid benefits, police don't need to be state run but some state level coordination can be appropriate, as can a federal level one, but should never exist in a given niche if a state can fill that role as well. This is what you see the GOP trying to shift towards, if there is any distinct trend to mobility, more localized control.