That doesn't make them any less a part of the culture war.
My legal philosophy skews hard right, so I'm no big fan of penumbras. But LGBT rights are a straightforward, textual application of the 14th amendment:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
It's there as clear as day: you don't get to single out particular people for special treatment under the law. The legal weaseling needed to avoid the plain text ("well the government is not denying anyone the right to marry someone of the opposite gender, even if they are gay") is right up there with reading the Second Amendment only to apply to militias.
It's also where textualists and originalists have to part ways. The framers of the 14th amendment almost certainly didn't intend to preclude state laws that single out gays, women, etc. But that's irrelevant--they used unquestionably broad language and the text on the page is the only thing that matters. Particularly here, where there is no argument that the words would have meant something different to the framers (which is different from saying that the reading is different than what the framers intended).
Some people prefer to marry men, they can't get singled out. Some prefer to rent a home rather than buy, they do get singled out. Others prefer no health insurance, they also get singled out. Or as it relates to gay marriage, people who prefer to be single get singled out.
The text pretty clearly says you can't pass a law "no voting if you have gay preferences". That's very different from requiring legal privileges for gay relationships.
"Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive."
From: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/...
I think those are First and Second amendment violations, so I'm not going to defend either thing.
> And in fact rural America isn't banning trannies in the ladies room in NYC either - recall that all Trump did was say this wasn't a federal issue. Rural America didn't start your culture war.
LGBT rights aren't part of a "culture war." They're 14th amendment equal protection issues. States are entitled to vote to create whatever kinds of societies they want (and I agree we often don't respect that enough), but what they cannot do is start making laws that single out certain kinds of people for special treatment. We're a federal republic, but that's one of the things you don't get to do while flying the American flag. And it's something that a big chunk of Americans won't tolerate happening in a place that's flying the American flag.