He also, on all public evidence, has inherited his father's WASP values, under which a general obligation to treat people decently is very important, but particular ideological passions are vulgar and boring. But he fabricated an objection and then had to fabricate a small moral awakening to get out of it. Years ago Hendrik Hertzberg, now of the New Yorker, coined a term for politicians who pretend to extreme social-conservative views they don't really share. Ronald Reagan, after a lifetime in Hollywood, almost surely had no moral objection to homosexuality. But he pretended to share the views of the religious right.
Abortion is an even better example.
But they feel they must pretend to believe it. It cannot be done. But the round trip must be tiring for those with any capacity for reflection. Listening to Republicans wax enthusiastic about new regulations on HMOs or a prescription drug subsidy program for seniors, you might suppose that the Republican-controlled Congress would be pushing for things like this even if the Democratic Party didn't exist. The Republicans tend to clothe their ideological nakedness with a lot of talk about privatization, using market forces, or simply doing it smaller.