2020 Vision or Blind Stupidity?

So what was the ultimate outcome of the Gay Marriage debate and vote last week?

For me it was summed up by the woman on Questiontime (ff to 41:35) who asked 'How can the Conservative Party claim to want a fairer, more equal society' after this? She was referring to the fact that more Conservative MPs voted against Gay Marriage than for it. 

The impact of this, the secondary boundary dispute in two weeks, surely has been not another exercise in decontaminating the Conservative brand, but if anything, re-contaminating it.

Some Conservatives might take exception to this, but I speak purely from the point of view of the demonstrable majority of the whole electorate who are in favour - see polling here and more up to date elsewhere. For them, the Conservatives have proved themselves to be exactly what many always suspected, the party of those who don't fight for fairness but for privilege for a minority. 

So why did the Conservative leadership allow this to happen?

Well. The first question to ask is:

Did the Conservative Leadership know that the kind of outcry from the older generation of Conservative members that did occur, would happen? 

If they didn't, then it was a tragic failure of intelligence. Polling and market research techniques, focus groups etc would have delivered a very clear picture on the depth of feeling on the issue. As my local Conservative Association President put it 'You are attacking people's core beliefs here'. 

If they did then surely it was an intentional and successful attempt to drive a dividing and differentiating line between the current Conservative leadership, and arguably their broad generation and younger, and the older generation.

If so why? And then, did it work?