[ak_yo]

I'd encourage you to think of this from the perspective of the person who's fearing for their life. It's rational to assume that the likelihood of someone potentially harming you is much higher if they're vocally expressing hatred about your identity.

[prepend]

It the fear is irrational, then it’s really not that wise to try to think from their persective. Since that irrationally might make someone flip. Like those people who self radicalize.

Now, this is quite different if someone is expressing or advocating violence. But some old catholic lady being against gay marriage represents zero threat of violence. Especially if she isn’t vocally expressing the hatred at work, but does something outside of work.

The issue I have is that simply expressing disagreement “I hate class X” is not a threat compared to “I want to cause grevious harm to class X.”

[yters]

Plus, saying "I believe it is wrong for people to do X" is not the same as saying "I hate people who do X". So a lot of the use of the word "hate" in this discussion is unjustified.

[backpropaganda]

Conservatives who are against say gay marriage aren't necessarily saying they hate gays. There are lots of completely benign reasons why people might believe that gay marriage shouldn't be a thing.