Listen, it’s a very easy premise: these anti-gay workers and activists believe homosexual thoughts are something everyone struggles with, because they experience similiar thoughts and urges all the time, and homosexuals are just people made the wrong choice. The logic is easy to follow. People bias their own experiences and wrongly assume that most people have similiar thoughts and feelings. So when you have feelings that you have been told your whole life are “wrong”, “unclean” or “evil”, you don’t assume that they’re unique to you; you see them as demons that everyone faces and attribute your ability to turn them away as a virtue. These people believe homosexuality is a choice because they believe themselves to have made the other choice.
The hate you see isn’t loathing for things they don’t understand. It’s resentment. It’s a deep-seated bitterness born of resentment and envy for people who chose not to fight against their own nature and instead celebrate it. And they believe they’re doing good by helping people like them make the “correct” choice, and eliminating any attitudes, conversations or, in extreme cases, persons, that would normalize the “incorrect” choice.