They are hedging their bets. They don't come out against same sex marriage for the whole country. Instead, they say it should be determined state by state. They realize telling people in the less "biblical" states they can't marry someone of the same sex will only hurt them in the presidential elections. So they propose allowing some states to infringe upon constitutional rights, while other states are free to uphold them. Same argument they used with school segregation, but updated a little to seem less idiotic. But stupidity is difficult to hide, isn't it?

But I think you're right in this case and it's a symptom of the GOP's eventual slide into irrelevance that they don't have anyone at the top saying this.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

I could be wrong, but...

It will appeal to that part of the Republican party that is against same sex marriage and may help in getting donations from that part of the party.

The rest of the people who vote Republican will continue to support the Republican party for any number of other reasons. Besides all but the most blind of voters recognize Congress will be unable to do anything about the SCOTUS ruling

This issue is a big loser for them, and they don't even know it.

The majority of voters are going to vote in the following ways:
1. The same party they have always voted for
2. The candidate they think will make their lives better, regardless of whether the candidate will or not
3. Whoever they like better, based far more on charisma then actual facts

Same sex marriage is now a done deal and it was never the hot button issue that would make the average voter change their vote over. It is only the very vocal political minorities on both sides that think it remains a hot button issue. I'm fairly certain that when the vast majority of the country heard about the decision, they went "that's nice" and returned to their reality show or wondering how they are going to pay this month's bills.

And same sex marriage is only going to be more popular. Any opposition to it is going to be harmful.

What I'm mostly worried about is them spending time and taxpayer monies passing laws as an "end run" around allowing marriage equality, however I'm unsure how well any of their initiatives will fare, ultimately. RFRA-like were initially all the rage but it backfired on them in, of all places, Indiana. Giving public officials the "option" of refusing to issue marriage licenses is going to create a mess and not all of them will go along with it, anyway. Refusing to issue marriage licenses to ANYBODY and/or requiring marriages to be licensed ONLY by churches is going to create all kinds of constitutional/legal headaches and many HETEROSEXUAL couples will be upset as not all heterosexual couples belong to and/or practice any religion. There will probably never be any way that they will get a SSM ban into the constitution. There is simply no clear way to circumvent SCOTUS' ruling on SSM but the wingnuts and fundies won't stop trying, at least for awhile.

'cuz that's where most of the antis will be. They are dying off.

(Of course there will always be some homophobic dipshits, but hopefully their power will dwindle down to nothing.)

They like being wrong about shit. It brings out the stupid people to vote for them. And there's a whoooooooole lot of stupid people.