Given that workplace violence is a thing that happens, and the high emotions business sometimes gets us in, you definitely made a mistake telling coworkers you own a gun.
I'll stand there and support your right to identify however you'd like and i'll support your right to express your views as your legal right, but who the hell are you tell me that acceptance should only apply to your stance that I should have just kept my mouth shut?
This right here is the exact behaviors that are driving Conservatives further right and frustrates those of us in the middle or slightly left to start swaying the other way.
Driving a vehicle is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Taking medications is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Drinking alcohol is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in recreational drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in illegal drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Swimming in a pool is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Cooking chicken you bought at Whole foods is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family.
See the absurdity in a generalized statement?
For instance, all the sex-and-ethnicity choosing going on. Totally without scientific merit, yet the left behaves as if it's science.
The pendulum swings both ways. Trump's election is a direct result of left-side hysteria and over-reach.
Are you suggesting that "transracialism" is treated as science or supported by anything approaching the mainstream left?
I think this is part of why some conservatives find themselves unwelcome. Being outwardly disparaging toward people does not make you friends.
It may be harmless (as you correctly point out), but it is not tethered to reality.
Rachel Dolezal (by far the most famous case that I know of) was pilloried by the left for cultural appropriation:
https://www.google.com/search?ei=x-UhWuymEIyojwOc6Kz4Bw&q=ra...
Shouldn't there be universal condemnation?
"The left" is not a spec or rigidly defined ideological canon that all "leftists" conform to. As with "the right", "capitalists", "socialists" or any other political or cultural generalization, actual "leftists" can comprise a spectrum of acceptance or disagreement.
Remember, Trump was a Democrat for a long while before he was a Republican. (IMHO, he became a Republican solely because it was the easier party to hijack at the time.)
i.e. If you agree with Barack Obama's stated position on this issue from 4 years ago.
Do we base morality on what politicians think is the best stance to get them elected?
The argument isn't that you "have to think this way because the government said so" it's that by airing viewpoints at work you're liking going to cause problems. As much as you might care a gay coworker likely has more reason to care, and they would view it as stomping on their rights.
Not because you're conservative, but because you're an idiot and are making your coworkers super uncomfortable. The same would happen if you went around saying "people who wear red jackets are inferior" when one of your team members wears their favorite red jacket to work everyday.