But there's no-one who advocates dragging people off in chains, slavery, etc. This isn't pattern-matching me to some well-known group (in which case I agree, I should distinguish myself). Instead, this is just deliberately straw-manning.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "punishing sinners" - but I assume you mean treating adultery as not just a breach of contract, but a tort. Well, damages for a tort are also financial.

As for "underlying gender inequality" - you'll notice that no-one else has brought that up in this thread. Perhaps that is the "reasoning by which [my] audience opposes" me", but if so I'd prefer that people actually advanced that reasoning, rather than that being their double super-secret baseline position, and their public one being a lot of straw-manning and nonsense. Alternatively, it may be that the "underlying gender inequality" argument is yours and yours alone, and you are projecting.