For Cruz’s strategy to work he needs an adversary, and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, has tentatively signaled that he will take on that role.

Bush, the leading prospective establishment candidate, told attendees at a fund-raiser in Palo Alto, Calif., on Friday that he supports “a big, diverse country” and that he is opposed to discrimination “based on sexual orientation.”

Bush’s comments may not sound earthshaking to Democratic liberals, but in the context of intraparty Republican warfare, his words are fighting words.

Before the religious freedom controversy, Republicans of all stripes had quietly struggled to resolve growing intraparty tensions away from the public spotlight.

Republican strategists and policy mavens are wary of the potential divisiveness of a public battle between the party’s mainstream and its cultural right that could split the party, even though many agree that such a split is inevitable.

Whit Ayres, a pollster and the author of “2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America,” argues that Republicans must come to terms with the fact that the public has shifted in a liberal direction on same-sex unions and homosexuality generally:

Public opinion has rendered its verdict on the morality of gay and lesbian relationships. The only question is whether the Republican Party will acknowledge and adapt to this new reality.

I emailed Ayres to ask if the outcome in Indiana, Arkansas and Georgia lent “support to those who argue that the Republican Party needs to become less dogmatic on gay rights issues, or does it strengthen (and anger and motivate) the Christian right?” He was notably circumspect in his reply:

Indiana shows that our political system can resolve these fundamental value conflicts, hopefully next time with less of a firestorm than this generated.

Curious as to the position of the Republican National Committee, I wrote to Sean Spicer, its communications director, to ask, “Does the outcome in Indiana strengthen the case made by the 2013 RNC task force calling for moderation on gay rights issues?”

Interestingly, Spicer declined to provide any substantive comment – an unusual display of reticence on the committee’s part that is indicative of the hot potato aspect of this issue for the Republican Party as a whole.