The overwhelming majority of Americans today would agree that hating homosexuals, like hating blacks and Jews, is bad — and that hating those who hate homosexuals, like hating those who hate blacks and Jews, is good.

The problem is that it’s not at all clear that rejecting the legitimacy of same-sex marriage on religious grounds is evidence of hating homosexuals — or that hating those who reject the legitimacy of same-sex marriage on religious grounds is morally justified.

What is clear is that significant numbers of gays and lesbians are intent on acting as if both were perfectly obvious, and on using the organizing power of social media to drive the point home against anyone who violates the supposedly supreme commandment against “hating” homosexuals in this very broad sense, and even against anyone who fails to express an adequate level of hatred toward these “haters.”

It would be better, I think, to recognize that hatred as such isn’t the problem. The problem is that those who support the legitimacy of same-sex marriage (myself included) and those who reject its legitimacy begin from very different, perhaps fundamentally incompatible moral and metaphysical assumptions. And that in many — maybe most — cases, “hate” has nothing at all to do with it.