It's only ever been about control.

And also, evangelical Christians are not a religious majority.

While 70 percent of Americans identify as Christian, only 25 percent identify as evangelical protestant. And these figures are from 2014. Tellingly, the older somebody is, the more likely they are to identify as Christian.

Which is the root cause behind the backlash.

They know they can't sell their religion to young people, so they resort to fear and coercion.

Many have resorted to fear ("You're going to hell") all along. I once witnessed one of these people informing the attendees at a funeral that they needed to fix their relationship with Jesus if they wanted to see the deceased again. I suggested to this preacher, yes, to his face, that maybe telling everyone how cool church is might be a better approach.

They want control back, because they *don't* have the numbers any more. They aren't even a majority of Christians. (Protestants in general are just under 50 percent, so they do have a majority of Protestants, but not by that much).

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/