The fissures in the conservative coalition got just a little bit deeper today, with the announcement that the free market will soon start delivering gay TV programming that religious conservatives will no doubt find completely unacceptable.

Here! TV, a supplier of gay- and lesbian-oriented content to satellite customers via pay-per-view, is eyeing an Oct. 1 launch for a round-the-clock programing service that will feature classic and original films and TV shows.

As part of its pledge to produce more than 200 hours of original programing a year, Here! TV has given the go-ahead to 12 original movies and four original series.

The Here! TV original series include "Dante's Cove," a gay and lesbian Gothic horror thriller currently filming in the Caribbean, and "Weapons of Mass Destruction," a spy thriller starring Cynthia Rothrock as a lesbian action hero.

Sooner or later, the Republican party is going to have to pick sides in this ongoing fight between mammon and morality, in much the same way that the Democrats were eventually forced to choose between Northern libs and their Southern and working class base. And the Republicans' decision, whatever it is, will almost certainly be every bit as damaging to the GOP as the Democrats' choice ultimately was to the party of the New Deal.

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