I wish that were the case. Sadly, I’d bet the vast majority of them are “practicing Catholics” - that is, they go to mass fairly regularly, etc.
But they are of a generation of Catholics so poorly catechized that they have no idea of the teachings of the Church and they think of it is a sort of feel-good thing that exists just to confirm them in feeling comfortable with themselves.
This priest and the bishop - and the sister, of course - are very courageous and it sounds to me that they’re not backing down for the money, as you put it. It’s just that there’s a huge backlog of poorly instructed, media-driven Vatican II Catholics out there, and they feel very empowered now that they have learned the left-wing tactics of mob action.
This area is mostly Protestant.
This is a young Diocese with Catholics making up about 3% of the population.
I'd bet the vast majority of the complainers aren't Catholic at all, but Protestants trying to force the Church to buy into their menagerie of viewpoints on this issue.