What they really did, is without authority redefined marriage. That is illegal...all this bullshit excuse they come up with is not logical in a legal or ethical sense. They knew this would result in persecution of Christians.
However, what is most important is it was a real poke at God’s eye...and that is why our nation is dead.
The government did.
The churches didn’t change where they were, at least nominally; however they might have leaned on Caesar rather than on the bible. Setting themselves up for a spiritual prat fall.
No, a dead government doesn’t have to mean a dead citizenry. The idea that the government ever had to make the citizenry spiritually alive is itself a fallacy.