Elements of the anti-gay right have searched long and hard for logic to make condemnation of homosexuality resonate: Gay men are pedophiles, homosexuality causes God to send hurricanes to Florida and kill off blackbirds in Arkansas, and, perhaps most silly, the theory that an intricate LGBT plot — the so-called “radical homosexual agenda” — is on the verge of gutting Western civilization.

In the end, it came down in line with prior precedent. The Supreme Court, ruling in late June on the Arizona law that set off a tsunami of ugly legislation aimed at undocumented immigrants, affirmed decades of settled law, saying the federal government — not states or cities — has the right to control immigration policy.

For years, an extreme-right online “news company” called WorldNetDaily has been pumping out staggering vol- umes of baseless conspiracy theories, end-of-the-world predictions, and “birther” attacks on President Obama. But its truly defining moment may have come with the fairy-tale claim that soy- beans cause homosexuality.

Detectives Kory Flowers and Rob Finch of the Greensboro, N.C., Police Intelligence Squad were both involved in tracking white supremacists when, a couple of years ago, a new threat started to show up on their radar.