To dovetail into your excellent comment, this is entirely anecdotal but I think the (white, Christian) age 40+ crowd is also also seeing what they consider their core religious beliefs and values not getting picked up by younger generations. It's been the case in the US that younger generations aren't as Christian as their parents for a long time, but this is really accelerating at a breakneck pace now.

Evangelical Christian parents are hyper focused on keeping their kids indoctrinated for as long as they possibly can. There are a number of reasons for this - social reproduction, status in their community for having "good Christian" kids, a fear that their kids will end up in hell, and so on (:zizek: ). But the solution for them is to keep their kids on social lockdown at least through age 18. That's one reason why schools are so much of their focus. For these parents who can't afford private school (and they're working on that with vouchers), schools are the one place they can't shelter their kids. So the idea of classrooms being a welcoming environment for LGBT kids is what draws the most of their ire. That's also why they will fight tooth and nail for the US to continue all our evil policies regarding how anyone under 18 is basically the personal property of their parents. Start talking about how kids should have rights that even parents can't abridge, and hoo boy you will see the Evangelicals get whipped up in a fury of anger even more intense than their hatred of wearing masks for the purposes of public safety

Just look at the current reactionary furor over Boston Children's Hospital. They cannot conceive of a young person having some agency and wanting to make a choice for themselves about their own body. Nope! To them the parents are the final arbiters for their kids. We all understand why it's important to make sure, for example, trans kids can confide in a teacher at school. It's usually someone saying "my home situation is horrible I can't be myself there like I can in school". But these parents see it as some teacher is directly violating their "rights" as a parent. Same situation, two very different interpretations of it.

As always, death to America.