Many Protestant congregations are essentially circles of family and friends who have known one another forever and who "go way back" in the community. A Protestant typically doesn't remain Anglican, or Methodist, or Lutheran, or what have you, based upon deep theological conviction and militant defense of that denomination's tenets to the exclusion of other denominations, but because "they were raised that way", again, often a family thing. So what you have now, is members of these families or social groups "coming out as gαy" (or whatever), and it becomes a case of "we love them so much that we have to find some way to accommodate them", trying not to split the congregation or the family, and maintaining social respectability and those all-important ties. Your garden-variety (for instance) Lutheran can't even consider the truth of the claims of Catholicism, because that would mean, in a way, leaving their family and their upbringing.
You are so right.
My grandmother was staying with me one time and she forgot to bring any reading material. She asked if I had anything to read, so I handed her the Baltimore Catechism. I was figuring the contents within might not set well with her but I thought I’d go ahead and see what happened. She is a very fast reader. At the end of the day, she finished it, sat it down and looked at me and said “If the world would follow what was in this book, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today.” Of course I agreed, so naturally I asked her if she thought that, why not be Catholic? And she said she couldn’t do that because her parents and oldest friends are Lutheran- that’s all she knows and she finds great comfort in her church of old.
She said this even after lamenting to me how the Lutheran church was now allowing gαy pastors and how sad she was that 1/2 the congregation left. She admitted it was wrong, but when I asked her why she would stay if she didn’t agree, she said because I’ve gone to this church for 50 years. I married your grandpa here, your mom was baptized and confirmed here and so were you. I’m too old to start something new.
I love my grandma so much. It broke my heart. That was 10 years ago. Her health is failing now, and she doesn’t have long. I’ve been thinking that soon would be a good time to revisit that conversation.
Maybe you could pray for her.