I do my best to treat people as individuals and resist the (very human) impulse to lump them into categories based on single aspects of who they are as a person. I've found that the times where I have slipped up and thought of people as "members of this group or that subset" that I then start making generalizations about them, and most times those generalizations don't "work" or fit the people who I've put into the groupings. My attempt to "make it easier on myself" to think of people as "this group" or "that group" only make it harder due to the errors and assumptions. For example, your statement of [quote]My entire family is against gays because they are Christian[/quote] is such an instance. You've taken a group (your family) and then assigned them a trait (not liking gays) and even decided the reason that group thinks a particular way (because their Christian) that then pigeonholes people based on any of 3 qualifications. Sure, it makes it easier to understand, but it ignores that each member of your family is an individual and may be an exception. It also implies that any Christian is going to dislike gays, and that anyone who does dislike gays may do so due to their faith. It puts assumptions onto any of those three groups that anyone else who shares a trait, is going to "follow the pattern", when every person has their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own likes/dislikes, and so on. Like I said, it's a very human trait to want to group people, and it certainly is a time-saver and makes "things easier". But it is inaccurate and many times, it is simply wrong. It does take more effort to deal with people one-at-a-time, but in the end, it is the only way that really allows you to see that we're not defined by "membership in an arbitrary group based on one part of who we are".