The atheist groups that have persecuted gays are tiny groups of deluded idiots, you know that Ivy. Every belief system has it, its only human nature that some people take views to an extreme - yours in particular has the FLDS if I remember correctly (the FLDS make Charlie Manson look like a sexual prude) but we wouldn't say thats in any way a fair representation of what the vast majority believe would we?
However, the MAJOR difference is that nearly every religious faith, and the vast majority of their memberships, actually do seriously believe gays will burn in hell/suffer eternal torture etc etc simply because they are apparently guilty of a sin - and they pass this on to everyone they can at every opportunity. Some will then go on to massacre unfortunate "sinners".
The vast majority of atheists don't particularly obsess over the whereabouts of other peoples penis' or who they choose to spend their lives with or make up ridiculous theories about how they can be punished.
I believe that the officially atheist Soviet Union did persecute gays, so apparently they were interested the whereabouts of other people's penises. I wouldn't doubt if other officially atheist Communist nations did the same thing. It clearly seems that your claim to exempt atheism is a case of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
By the way, can you please point out when in the past 300 years...or 500 years a Christian or any other religious organization (aside from Islam) specifically massacred gays? Since you make that claim you should be able to point to at least a single example.
