I think you are blind to the big picture regarding what GOV's role is and how it's role to be legitimate must be limited.
Right now we see GOV regulating and taxing and fining businesses for reasons far more than protecting individuals life and property -we see GOV attempting to social engineer, in essence redistribute wealth arbitrarily' fairly. I would suggest that this is what is happening with the marriage institution as well. The utopian leftists are taking the societal norm that values families and marriage established for centuries and turning it on its head to be fair. To in essence redistribute the benefits to other groups.
This is not about a government of the people protecting institutions in existence before GOV was even constituted. This is about GOV being used to impose upon society a perverted leftist morality. This is about GOV overstepping its legitimate limits.
Conservatism is not about no GOV, it's about limited GOV.
Sure, it says it's about smaller, limited government. Like how it shrank and limited government when it had control after the 2000 elections? The conservatism that gave us homeland security, medicare part d and all of the other things that shrank and restrained fedgov back then? I hear a lot of talk to get the suckers to the polls and then a lot of hypocrites making excuses for making fedgov bigger and more intrusive after the elections. Color me skeptical... At best.