The part that really sticks out to me from the Associated Press article is this paragraph (emphasis mine):

Dobson has a devoted following. His radio broadcast reaches an estimated 1.5 million U.S. listeners daily. Yet critics say his influence is waning, pointing to evangelicals pushing to broaden the movement's agenda beyond abortion, gay marriage and other issues Dobson views as most vital.

James Dobson's influence has been waning in recent years. Focus on the Family spent millions of dollars to help pass California's Proposition 8 only to turn around and layoff 200 staffers. President Obama doesn't take his marching orders from the religious right and the mood of the country's politics has swung left.

As the article points out, we've seen several evangelicals calling for more action on the environment, human rights abuses, poverty, world hunger, and medical services. These are positives. Many younger religious conservatives don't subscribe to the theory that God, guns and gays are the solution to achieve political power.

Now that Jerry Falwell has gone to his reward (thanks to that lesbian coven of witches!), Coral Ridge Ministries has lost Dr. D. James Kennedy, Ted Haggard has been disgraced and James Dobson has resigned, the torch is being handed to a younger generation of Christian conservatives. Plenty of this gaggle of religious right leaders are just as loony (see my many posts about Indiana Family Institute leader Ryan McCann, for example), but at the same time their world view has already shifted.

More than likely, most of the new leaders won't be in their 20's or even 30's. They won't be that much more liberal than their predecessors. Dobson, Kennedy and Falwell were all elderly and management will be given to other white men in their 50's or 60's. Still, that almost imperceptible shift will be just as lethal to the homophobic and sexist role model.

Civil rights legislation in the 60's drove mainstream racism deeper into the shadows. While racism obviously continued to exist, it quickly lost its luster in not just polite society, but amongst the middle and lower classes. As the LGBT community gains further social acceptance and legal protections homophobia and transphobia will also fade into a shade of its former self.

We can't expect the change to happen overnight; it'll take years if not decades. But we can rejoice as we watch the march of time and justice work in our favor.