Republicans struggle to be bigoted enough for their base without turning everyone else off

The Republican National Committee's spring meeting featured the Republicans sidling up to a controversial issue in a curiously watered-down way. In line with the current Republican obsession with "religious freedom," the RNC offered a resolution in support of states passing Religious Freedom Restoration Acts:

“The Republican National Committee stands firm in upholding natural, human, constitutional, and, under the RFRA, statutory rights of religious freedom,” the resolution states.

Translation: natural, human, constitutional, and statutory rights to hate the gays. Got it. This fits with the widespread institutional Republican support for the license-to-discriminate laws passed by Indiana and Arkansas before public outcry forced them to back off a little.

But speaking of backing off, the RNC resolution then pulled the punch by advocating not an original Indiana kind of law, but ones modeled on the federal RFRA:

“The Republican National Committee supports and encourages States’ actions to enact laws that mirror the federal RFRA to protect citizens’ rights to lead all aspects of their lives according to their deeply held religious beliefs,” it states.

So, basically, "Let's pander to the crowd that's outraged a business owner can't discriminate, but without officially advocating for blatantly discriminatory laws that make us look terrible. (But we sure will defend those laws as they come up.)"