Sadly, this goes both ways. What some defend as a right and as a way to keep moral decay and corruption of the soul, is their "right" to purge the "blight" that homosexuality is in their communities, by all means necessary. And that is exactly how my "adopted" (not official but on a house-mom kinda way) little brother ended up in my country, chased away by his own flesh and blood.
What to us looks like bigotry and prejudice, to them it looks like community and fight against oppression, what to us looks like a holocaust, to them means keeping their community, values and way of life safe and preserved.
We do need to engage with them, to either make them realize that their hatred is fucking vile, or to at least be able to reach our kin in the other side of the divide, show them that there is a way and their existence is not a curse, and that they CAN escape to our side.
Well, someone like you won over a homophobic teenager with kindness and a good faith discussion almost three decades ago. And that teen, once he stopped hating for half a second, found out that he was gay himself, so thank you for engaging with those voices.
I won't tell you to keep doing it, since it is exhausting and I can't tell you what to do, but know that those efforts are hardly a complete waste.
You're fantastic.