As someone who has visited the US many, many times since 1975 and actually lived in N.H. for a couple of Years, I just get the feeling that the puritanism of the 17th Century (and later) has a part to play in this.
Why else would a state (can't remember which one) pass a law where for a man to have a pee in public is a sex crime and that law does not apply to women?

One of the reasons why we (my wife of the time) didn't stay was the fact that 1) we didn't go to church and 2) we didn't have any children and had no intention of having any. We were effectively shunned by our neighbours. All they could talk about was 'getting their kids into the best school and church activities'.
A few years later I discussed this with a Quaker (an old school friend of mine) who said that this was probably a hangover to the days of the Puritans.
How much truth there is in this, I don't know but it sort of makes sense to me.

...if I understood them better myself.

The suspicion, and some evidence, points to this being backlash by our "conservative Christian" minority to the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Modern Western society (as evidenced by their ancient Middle-Eastern holy book) is evidently going to pot, and they want to stop it. Anyway, we have plenty of two-bit politicians and non-profit conservative lobbying groups (with well-rewarded executive management) perfectly happy to exploit any societal stresses or angsts to gain electoral advantage, or to raise money from the rubes for their campaigns.

It's our 21st Century equivalent of snake-oil carnivals. Or maybe snake-oil carnival meets Revivalist tent meeting.

Anyway, we all need to watch out for those folks, lest they manage to gain enough strength for a theo-fascist uprising.