I think there was a sense that the impact was being lost because the audience was so familiar with the form. You combine that with people's attention spans, which are clearly conditioned to be shorter now, and there's a need to vary the paradigm.
I think it's best if there's an amendment that goes on the ballot where the people can weigh in. Every time this issue has gone on the ballot, the people have voted to retain the traditional definition of marriage as recently as California in 2008.