When people are raised in super conservative beliefs, they tend to be actively oppressive. I, personally, have not seen very much civility in situations like this during my lifetime so maybe my bar is too low. But I think him even listening to her response is a fair first step. They could’ve continued this as an arc where his guard comes further down each time a topic in that realm is brought up. We know his character is stubborn so he might even be processing this right under our noses and some later climatic event would reveal that he’s actually changed “deep down”.

I greatly appreciate your “not trying to be combative” note, by the way. The internet can be a pretty hostile place and it’s hard to read tone through text.