It seems to me that there is a history that goes all the way back to the early Church. The persecution the early Church suffered resulted in a sense of always being under attack, which persisted even after Constantine made Christianity the official religion. That sense of being under attack, combined with the belief that the Church should be the primary and at times the sole arbiter of truth and salvation, resulted in a sense of the right and indeed the obligation to be the institution that ruled or at least ordered  society. That worked until the Reformation. Vestiges of this continue in this country in the attitude of the bishops that if a society makes decisions  counter to Church teaching, or if people are vocal in their disagreement with an aspect of those teachings, this constitutes a persecution. If you believe that it is your duty to ordain how society is, then any dissent is seen as persecution. Hence the Fortnight of Freedom and other manifestations of a siege mentality.