I think this is exactly backwards.
> but they are often hell for that one gay resident.
Contrarily, people are way more likely to accept a person once they know them personally as part of their community. Small towns don't operate like high school locker rooms.
On the one hand we have endless accounts of people deathly afraid of coming out, even to families that "know them personally" (and grave consequences in cases where the truth inadvertently comes to light), even when the larger community/law explicitly protects them. On the other we have your vague assertion that it'll be all right. I doubt "just get to know the other" works outside of specific constraints that are absent from most "organic" threats to the local orthodoxy.
> I think this is exactly backwards.
No it is not. States and corporations are bound by law and to a great extent by public opinion while smaller communities are much freer to tyrannize their members.
Being part of the same "community" didn't stop school segregation in the south, the federal government did.
With your reasoning, feudalism is the most accountable form of government, safest for minorities.
It's not clear why you brought up feudalism but systems in which a local lord is responsible for dispensing justice allow for far more abuse that those with centralized legal systems. It is always better for judges to be as far removed from the outcome of the case as possible.
In theory. In practice, corporations do risk analysis and compute liabilities and flout the law all the time. Particularly environmental laws. One disaster after another. Coverups, bribery, corruption, evading accountability. You're living in an alternate universe, because this one is full of malfeasance and screwups from huge organizations with zero consequences.
In that case, doesn't the institution become the totalitarian state?