Ramesh, I would first suggest that the social-conservative critiques of NR should also be seen as lobbying. Writers don’t just mean to protest emptily, but to provoke you into more socially conservative articles, to provoke you into more engagement with the social issues. NR occupies a special place in the conservative pantheon, and they want its name and strength in the thick of the battle. They fear it becoming part of the sentence “Even National Review thinks…(surrender now to the historical inevitability of so-called gay marriage or whatever).” We’ve seen that NR can be used to define what conservatism is, so you can see why conservatives would want to shape that definition, and to expect you to match a 100-percent-ACU-rating type of firm line.