Josh Barro writes in Business Insider about the deafening silence from the right following U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s statement in support of gay marriage. He finds nothing.

I too spent a good part of my day on Wednesday and this morning looking for reaction to Murkowski’s statement on gay marriage. Nadda. Not from the National Review. Not from the American Spectator. Not even from Joe Miller or Sarah Palin, neither of whom have been shy about taking shots at Murkowski.

Just a few years ago, the right would have been in an uproar and would have denounced Murkowski as a heretic.

Barrow suspects that “deep down, many socially conservative writers are less confident than they used to be that gay marriage is wrong. So they’ve abdicated any effort to argue against gay marriage or hold accountable Republicans who support it.”

I suspect that deep down, they know it’s a losing issue for them. And they are also jittery about being on the wrong side of history days before the U.S. Supreme Court is set announce one or both of its decisions on gay marriage.

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