Luckily, if you live in a place where terrible people barely exist (NYC, SF, Massachusetts, etc.), it isn't really an issue. There are only a few times that I've run into an issue from just openly stating "homophobes are awful" as if it was the weather - the typical response is as if I had said "it's raining" - "well, duh".

My general approach is to be glad I pissed those people off, because I now know to never associate with them again.

This might be harder in, say, Texas.