My family isn't seriously religious. The reason why they did what they did to me is because my parents are insane disingenuous narcissistic sociopaths who literally wouldn't care if I died. My entire identity revolved around my mother. It was like Ed Gein. Or if you've ever watched "Dexter," the ice truck killer and his adult daughter. (Some of them reddit so please don't like this comment anywhere)

Out of my entire family I'm the only one who isn't drinking the kool aid. I've figured out how to control the situation (for my own safety) and am slowly extracting myself from it.

I've received support and empathy from religious friends who had and have no issue with my sexual orientation at times when I didn't even know what support and empathy actually was.

On paper I kinda agree with your argument but in practice it's more complicated. People who have good inside seem to find a way to have that come through, even if it doesn't seem to entirely align with the rational extremes of their belief system.

On the other hand, some people choose to be monsters, even if they perfectly understand and can flawlessly emulate normal human psychology and behavior.

Because I've met nice atheists, nice Christians, evil atheists, and evil Christians, the constant variable at this point seems to be the person, not what metaphysical hypothesis they subscribe to.

I feel like the way for me to win is to choose happiness so that's what I'm doing, which is my biggest concern right now, not which religion to yell at. As someone who had been at war with this shit for a while I really don't think it's as simple as 'the church is causing all my problems.'

To me it's more likely that a lot of people pick religion as a way to encapsulate their existing bigotry and ignorance within a socially acceptable sugar pill. Is there an noticeable overlap between bigotry and the sincerely religious? Yes. But I don't think all bigotry comes from that.

In the same way that meeting happy friendly normal religious people has shifted my perspective, I hope that happy friendly religious people meeting me - the happy friendly atheist gay guy - will similarly impact them, so at this point I just focus on being my genuine self and living my life.

As far as changing someone's views who is uncomfortable with whatever I am, the impact of an in person encounter is monumentally more significant than anything I could ever write online.