> There's a significant difference between an ideology and an identity.

I suspect that many Muslims consider that to be their identity, not just their ideology.

> Why—whenever the question of hate comes up—is HN so quick to rise to the defense of the hateful?

Because I'm hateful (to at least somebody). And so are you. We don't defend the hateful because the hateful are so wonderful. We don't defend them because we agree with them. We defend them because we're defending us some time down the road.

"I'm a shitty person, and so are you." is a cop-out and frankly insulting.

> I suspect that many Muslims consider that to be their identity, not just their ideology.

I can't believe I have to explain that the difference is between what's a choice and what's not: You can't change your identity. Ideology is arbitrary.

That isn't what I said. I said that there is someone who thinks you're a terrible person. It doesn't matter whether you are or not. They think you are, because you're too gay, or too straight, or to conservative, or too liberal, or your skin is too dark, or your skin is too light, or you're too old, or you're too young, or you're too religious, or you're not religious enough, or you have the wrong religion, or whatever. There are people who think that you are a terrible person.

So be careful of justifying intolerance of the terrible. That rationale can be used against you, perhaps by people a whole lot less well-meaning than you are.

There's also a line between terrible and hateful.

Hateful is willfully terrible.

If there's anyone out there that thinks I'm hateful, then they're factually incorrect.

> I can't believe I have to explain that the difference is between what's a choice and what's not

You don't, you just need to understand that the idea that identity is always centered on immutable characteristics is wrong.

Are you saying that people can never change the gender/sex/etc they identify with? Some people would find that hateful!