It's not sympathy. It's pointing out their own internalized self hatred as an explanation beyond them being some mustache twirling villain. It's more pathetic imo for a homophobic politician to struggle with their sexuality vs learned values so hard that instead of coming to the conclusion that gay = ok they try to exterminate gays instead.

If they were just awful people for no reason other than religion that's just straight brain rot but if you are literally part of the group you're trying to extinguish I feel like that has to be the most embarrassing thing for that individual. Like just get therapy at that point.

I'd be surprised if anybody arguing in good faith would genuinely believe the above criticism is somehow a jab at gay people as a whole when it's very obvious it's just about the homophobe in general. The moral here is you can be gay and still want to stomp the rights of others in your same situation. I know friends whose black/immigrant parents voted for Trump. There's psychos everywhere my guy.

It doesn't really make me sympathize with them any more. Maybe you could utilize the information to avoid raising more homophobes in the future.