["New Testament. Paul condemns homosexuals (including lesbians)."]

Indeed, which rather makes the point. We seem to be fairly clearly in the realm of religious persecution here, if the teachings of the world's largest religion, the basis of all western civilisation, are described as 'hate'.

I seem to remember that sodomy was legalised on the basis that it was no business of the state what two people did in private. How far we have come from that! Far from being something to be tolerated in private, it seems that anyone who dares to express any hostility is to be demonised, assaulted and abused, and subjected to all the processes
of compulsion known to modern governments, overt and covert. It seems that anyone who opposes the most public expressions of this detestable vice will be lucky not to be arrested.

Perhaps legalisation of this particular vice was indeed deeply unwise -- indeed of anything --, if tolerance of it has now become an excuse for the sort of persecution that we associate with the inquisition.